Nurses’ fury as health chiefs impose £1m cuts

Unions are furious at plans to impose cuts to overtime, on-call payments, mileage rates, sick pay and maternity leave in a package of measures by the Care Plus Group, which has run adult health and social care services across North East Lincolnshire since 2011, to slash costs by up to £1m in 2013-14.

Glenn Turp, regional director of the Royal College of Nursing, accused managers of “strong-arming” the measures on staff.

“After just 19 months managing care services, the Care Plus Group is being forced to balance its books because of elementary mistakes and financial miscalculations when it was set up. It is simply unacceptable to force staff to pay by cutting their conditions of employment,” he said.

Chief operating officer Jane Miller said: “Continued reductions in central government funding for health and social care services have meant that doing nothing is not an option for the organisation.

“When Care Plus Group was formed in July 2011, there was no way we could have predicted the extent of the changes being necessary but national funding reductions and increased general costs due to inflation have made this situation impossible to avoid.”