24,000 jobs are at risk in the NHS- new claims predict
Patricia Hewitt has faced pressure from Labour MPs to step in and help debt-ridden hospitals amid fears that up to 24,000 jobs could be lost across the National Health Service. Alarm has grown among Labour's backbenchers as they have witnessed nearly 7,000 job losses being announced by NHS trusts across the country in the space of a few weeks. Figures published today show that the number of posts axed by hospital managers could eventually rise to nearly four times that figure.
Research by the Liberal Democrats suggests that just over 6,000 job cuts have been announced by hospitals that together have a combined deficit of £130 million.
However, this represents only a quarter of the £550 million budget deficit that ministers have predicted in the NHS this year.
If similar levels of job losses are announced by the hospitals that account for the rest of this deficit, the total number of posts to go could climb as high as 24,000. While the Government insists that this year's budget deficit will be between £550 million and £600 million, critics have warned that the figure could be much higher.
The Conservatives have predicted a figure of £800 million, while the union-funded Health Emergency campaign group has said it could top £1 billion.
Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said ministers could not carry on ignoring the crisis.
"The Government is refusing to come clean about the crisis that is afflicting the NHS," he said. "Every day brings further news of more job cuts which will undoubtedly affect front-line patient care.
"Staff morale and public confidence in the NHS will continue to crumble until ministers take action to reverse this trend."
But the Department of Health moved swiftly last night to reject the Lib Dem analysis.
A spokesman said: "We would completely dispute these figures, which sound very much like a back-of-the-envelope calculation." But ministers cannot disguise the growing unease on their own back benches over the damage the job losses are causing Labour on the doorstep.
Many in the party fear that the almost daily announcements of cuts will bring a backlash from voters in next month's local elections.
Charlotte Atkins, the Labour MP for Staffordshire Moorlands and a member of the Commons health select committee, urged ministers to find extra money to help hospitals ease the pain of job losses.
Her local hospital is the University Hospital of North Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent, which recently announced it would be shedding 1,000 jobs.
Miss Hewitt visited the hospital last week, making it one of only a dozen or so hospitals that the Health Secretary has managed to visit over the last year.
Miss Atkins said managers at the hospital were trying to soften the blow of job losses by helping staff affected to move into new jobs in local community health clinics.
But she said the trust needed extra funding from Whitehall to make such a plan work.
"We do not want to lose the expertise of clinical staff and that is why the plan is being put together to ask for some money to keep them in jobs in the community," she said.
"Hopefully there will be transitional funding to help them make that move. Patricia Hewitt certainly sounded positive when she was here on Tuesday."
However, there were few signs in Whitehall yesterday that Miss Hewitt was ready to give any ground.
Senior officials insisted that the round of job losses was an inevitable part of the drive to deal with long-standing funding problems within the NHS.
"There's certainly no prospect of extra money. Spending on the Health Service is already set to rise to £92 billion by 2008, which is nearly three times more than Labour inherited in 1997," said one source.
"Even if the Liberal figures are right, it is still 20,000 jobs out of a workforce of nearly 1.3 million."
The latest predictions on job losses came as it emerged that the Health Service was spending millions of pounds leasing luxury cars for senior managers. About 35,000 senior NHS executives and consultants are getting subsidies of up to £6,600 a year to lease cars that they can later buy at a discount. The total bill for NHS staff is approaching £90 million.
A Department of Health spokesman said last night: "Out of the million or so staff in the NHS, a minority of posts are given a fixed entitlement for leasing cars.
"If they want to hire a more expensive car, they repay the additional costs back to their trust."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=5502KTZ4FNVFBQFIQMGSFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/04/10/nhs10.xml&sSheet=/portal/2006/04/10/ixportaltop.html
Research by the Liberal Democrats suggests that just over 6,000 job cuts have been announced by hospitals that together have a combined deficit of £130 million.
However, this represents only a quarter of the £550 million budget deficit that ministers have predicted in the NHS this year.
If similar levels of job losses are announced by the hospitals that account for the rest of this deficit, the total number of posts to go could climb as high as 24,000. While the Government insists that this year's budget deficit will be between £550 million and £600 million, critics have warned that the figure could be much higher.
The Conservatives have predicted a figure of £800 million, while the union-funded Health Emergency campaign group has said it could top £1 billion.
Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said ministers could not carry on ignoring the crisis.
"The Government is refusing to come clean about the crisis that is afflicting the NHS," he said. "Every day brings further news of more job cuts which will undoubtedly affect front-line patient care.
"Staff morale and public confidence in the NHS will continue to crumble until ministers take action to reverse this trend."
But the Department of Health moved swiftly last night to reject the Lib Dem analysis.
A spokesman said: "We would completely dispute these figures, which sound very much like a back-of-the-envelope calculation." But ministers cannot disguise the growing unease on their own back benches over the damage the job losses are causing Labour on the doorstep.
Many in the party fear that the almost daily announcements of cuts will bring a backlash from voters in next month's local elections.
Charlotte Atkins, the Labour MP for Staffordshire Moorlands and a member of the Commons health select committee, urged ministers to find extra money to help hospitals ease the pain of job losses.
Her local hospital is the University Hospital of North Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent, which recently announced it would be shedding 1,000 jobs.
Miss Hewitt visited the hospital last week, making it one of only a dozen or so hospitals that the Health Secretary has managed to visit over the last year.
Miss Atkins said managers at the hospital were trying to soften the blow of job losses by helping staff affected to move into new jobs in local community health clinics.
But she said the trust needed extra funding from Whitehall to make such a plan work.
"We do not want to lose the expertise of clinical staff and that is why the plan is being put together to ask for some money to keep them in jobs in the community," she said.
"Hopefully there will be transitional funding to help them make that move. Patricia Hewitt certainly sounded positive when she was here on Tuesday."
However, there were few signs in Whitehall yesterday that Miss Hewitt was ready to give any ground.
Senior officials insisted that the round of job losses was an inevitable part of the drive to deal with long-standing funding problems within the NHS.
"There's certainly no prospect of extra money. Spending on the Health Service is already set to rise to £92 billion by 2008, which is nearly three times more than Labour inherited in 1997," said one source.
"Even if the Liberal figures are right, it is still 20,000 jobs out of a workforce of nearly 1.3 million."
The latest predictions on job losses came as it emerged that the Health Service was spending millions of pounds leasing luxury cars for senior managers. About 35,000 senior NHS executives and consultants are getting subsidies of up to £6,600 a year to lease cars that they can later buy at a discount. The total bill for NHS staff is approaching £90 million.
A Department of Health spokesman said last night: "Out of the million or so staff in the NHS, a minority of posts are given a fixed entitlement for leasing cars.
"If they want to hire a more expensive car, they repay the additional costs back to their trust."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=5502KTZ4FNVFBQFIQMGSFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/04/10/nhs10.xml&sSheet=/portal/2006/04/10/ixportaltop.html
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