Key London Hospitals To Lose Over 600 Jobs

M@
By M@ Last edited 157 months ago
Key London Hospitals To Lose Over 600 Jobs


Barts and The London NHS Trust is the latest public institution to announce job cuts. The medical centres will shed 635 jobs over the next two years in a bid to cut £30 million costs. The fiscal scalpel will compulsorily excise 200 staff, with the remainder leaving through retirement or voluntary redundancy.

Almost half of the cuts will come from the corporate and administrative departments, with P45s for 83 clinical and diagnostic staff. Bad enough, but the big kicker is the cuts to frontline nursing positions. Up to 10% of all posts (i.e. around 250 people) will be sheared, with a diminution of 100 beds. The losses will affect Bart's in Smithfield, the Royal London in Whitechapel and the London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green.

The NHS have been told to reduce costs by £20 billion by 2014, and with 'two-thirds' of its budget going on pay, a reduction in frontline staff is probably unavoidable.

Still, cuts hurt — both to those directly affected and to those who would use the diminished service. Nursing representatives are using words like 'outrageous', 'ludicrous' and 'huge mistake', and this story is very unlikely to end here. Especially as we've yet to hear how London's remaining hospitals will tackle their shrunken piggy banks. The BBC have more.

Last Updated 04 February 2011