On the front line

None of the parties have stated, with clarity, how they will achieve the necessary financial savings. There have just been vague promises, even though the Royal College of Nursing's extrapolation of the available figures reveals that up to 5,600 jobs could be lost.

This is, actually, a relatively small number when placed in the wider context of the overall number of people employed by the Health Service.

Yet, when politicians talk about the need to safeguard "frontline" posts, such as doctors and nurses, they instinctively denigrate the role played by non-clinical staff.

These people will believe, and with justification in most instances, that their job is important as it allows the medical practioners to offer the professionalism that patients now expect from the NHS.

This raises three points. First, if these non-frontline jobs are not important, why were they created in the first place? Second, can a moratorium be placed on the recruitment of all new administrative staff? And, third, can some hospital trusts share the expertise of managers – just like Yorkshire's police forces – in order to save money, and reduce their dependence on highly-paid executives?