NHS crisis as two more hospitals cut down staff |
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Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:45
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LONDON: Mounting debts have forced two more hospitals belonging the NHS to cut down staff and services, taking the total job losses to more than 2,000 in about a week.
The two hospitals, the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, North London, and Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup, southeast London, have announced cuts in jobs in spite of six years of government funding for running the scheme.
The Royal Free Hospital, a leading hospital, said it will shed 480 posts in order to make up 25 million pounds in savings in 2006-2007. The trust running the hospital said it would try to minimise the redundancies.
The hospital's chief executive Andrew Way said the cuts would form part of an effort to improve staff efficiency and reconfigure wards. The measures are not exceptional and are designed to bring the hospital in line with other leading organisations, he said.
At Queen Mary's Hospital, nearly 190 jobs will be lost to cover up its estimated 13-million-pound deficit.
Health secretary Patricia Hewitt is confronted with a projected 623 million pounds overspend this year in the NHS' 76-billion-pound budget. She had said "turnaround teams" of financial specialists are being sent to health trusts facing financial risks.
Meanwhile, chancellor Gordon Brown denied that he has ignored the NHS in his budget. He said he had mentioned in his budget Wednesday that health trusts would receive an extra 6 billion pounds in the next financial year and a further 6 billion pounds the year after that.
Brown said efficiency in the NHS was crucial so that new and often expensive treatments for breast cancer and heart disease can be introduced.
Brown was largely responding to Conservative leader David Cameron's reference that "the health service didn't even get a mention" in the budget.
The other major NHS hospitals that have planned job cuts are New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton, West Midlands (300), University Hospital of North Straffordshire(1,000) and Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust (200).
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