Nurses warn of crisis as ‘56,000 NHS jobs lost or facing the axe’

Data from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) found 56,058 jobs have been axed or face the cut across the UK.

While last November the figure stood at just 27,000, in April, the figure was almost 40,000, including redundancies that have already been announced or are in the pipeline, and jobs that have not been filled once people leave or retire. The information is taken from NHS trusts, including analysis of board meeting papers, forward planning, annual and strategy documents.

On top of job losses, the RCN warned of posts being downgraded – where jobs are re-classified by NHS trusts to save money but staff can be expected to perform the same duties for less pay or less skilled workers are brought in.

Last month, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley told MPs he was not aware of any NHS jobs being downgraded in this way but yesterday the RCN said the NHS was heading for “crisis point”.

RCN chief executive Dr Peter Carter said: “Cutting staff numbers by up to a quarter and axing a third of nursing posts will undoubtedly have a deep and potentially dangerous impact on patient care.

“There is clear evidence that the quality of care and patient safety is improved when you have the right numbers and skills in place on wards.”

But David Stout, NHS Confederation Deputy Chief Executive, said: “Given that about 70 per cent of the NHS budget is spent on people, it is unrealistic to expect staff to be unaffected.

“The RCN is counting the number of job losses and automatically assuming that any job going is bad for patients. That is just is not the case.”