Barts and the London set to lose 250 nursing jobs as part of budget cuts

12 April 2012

Hundreds of nursing jobs are set to be axed at one of London's flagship hospital trusts, the Evening Standard has learned.

Leaked documents show that more than 250 nursing posts are among 630 set to go at Barts and The London NHS Trust. The trust's three London hospitals are also planning to cut the number of hours worked by consultants, reduce the number of in-patient beds by 100 and review critical care staffing.

Trust bosses claim they will limit the number of actual job losses in its 7,000-strong workforce to 200 by cutting unfilled posts, a reduction in the use of temporary staff and through staff moving to other jobs which become vacant. But cutting more than 600 posts, many in frontline clinical care, will raise concerns over patient care.

At least half of the posts being axed will be in nursing, clinical or diagnostic areas. Thousands more are expected to go at other London hospitals as part of a 20 per cent efficiency drive by 2014/15.

The cuts at the trust, which include Barts in the City, the Royal London in Whitechapel and The London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green, include:

Reducing the number of nursing posts by 258 to save £11.3million.

Cutting the number of four-hour sessions worked by consultants by at least 550 a year to save £4.7million.

100 fewer in-patient beds.

Axing 83 clinical and diagnostic posts to save £4.3million.

Scrapping about 220 administrative posts to save £5.2million.

Cutting at least 70 in corporate directorates, including human resources and IT, as part of £9.9million savings.

The trust aims to save £56million over two years. Chief executive Peter Morris said the reforms were needed to cope with the growing demand of expensive technology, drugs, the ageing population and public health problems such as obesity. The proposals went out for consultation this week.

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