Hundreds of NHS jobs in Sussex to be axed (From The Argus)
Get involved: Send your news, views, pictures and video by texting SUPIC to 80360 or email us.
Hundreds of NHS jobs in Sussex to be axed
10:30am Tuesday 9th August 2011 in News By Siobhan Ryan, Health Reporter
Hundreds of jobs are to be axed by health bosses over the next five years.
NHS trusts across the county are battling to save millions of pounds while facing one of the biggest shake-ups in the organisation’s history.
Managers say they are unable to rule out redundancies although they are hoping to make savings by cutting back on expensive agency staff and not filling vacant posts.
Unions believe the cuts are just the tip of the iceberg.
The Sussex Community NHS Trust has revealed it wants to reduce its staff numbers by 10% - the equivalent of about 430 positions, by 2015.
The trust runs specialist community and rehabilitation services for adults and children across Brighton and Hove and West Sussex.
Its work covers district nurses, podiatrists, nurses specialising in skin problems like eczema and support for stroke patients.
The losses could affect different parts of the trust but it is hoped they will be covered through not filling vacancies, retirements, staff moving on to other jobs and cutting back on agency and staff spending.
The changes are down to the way the trust plans to provide services in the future while it tackles the same financial pressures as the rest of the NHS.
Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Worthing Hospital, Southlands in Shoreham and St Richard’s in Chichester, is also planning to cut the amount it spends on staff this year by the equivalent of 128 posts.
Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Royal Sussex in Brighton and the Princess Royal in Haywards Heath, maintains it has no plans to reduce positions, despite having to save £21 million this year.
The hospital trust has called in an independent financial expert at a cost of £143,000 in an effort to get its spending under control.
East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs Eastbourne District General Hospital and the Conquest in St Leonards, is working with accountants Ernst and Young to try to clear a £6 million deficit and has not ruled out the possibility of job losses in the future.
More than 170 jobs have already been lost at the county's primary care trusts ahead of their planned axing in two years time as part of the government's shake up of the NHS.
See the full story in today's Argus.
Can the NHS cope with the cuts? Tell us what you think below, write to our letters page or email letters@theargus.co.uk
Comments(10)
TheInsider
says...
12:26pm Tue 9 Aug 11
The coalition promised that the NHS and front line services would not be touched.
Their supporters would regularly post on here that the Tories were helping the NHS and investing, yet within weeks one of my friends who is a nurse received a letter saying nursing posts were being cut.
They have lied.
gmgc81
says...
12:48pm Tue 9 Aug 11
Proves his "promises" are as photoshopped as that advert. I never trusted Cameron before, and I never will. Never voted Conservative, never will nor will I vote Lib Dem either. They've assisted in this travesty.
Davrow
says...
2:28pm Tue 9 Aug 11
This is nothing less than legalised robbery.
Thumper Hove
says...
3:12pm Tue 9 Aug 11
There could be a reduction in posts, over the next five years. That's not the same as the headline claims....its unlike the Argus to have misleading headlines!!
It also doesn't say where these posts are. If its losing doctors/nurses then everyone should speak up, but if its trimming the excess in management/administr
ation then no-one will mind that.
Sussex Community NHS Trust wants to reduce staff numbers by 10%, or rather it wants to reduce numbers by 2% per year over the next five years. No-one needs to lose a job, natural wastage will be in excess of this figure.
Thumper Hove
says...
3:16pm Tue 9 Aug 11
There could be a reduction in posts, over the next five years. That's not the same as the headline claims....its unlike the Argus to have misleading headlines!!
It also doesn't say where these posts are. If its losing doctors/nurses then everyone should speak up, but if its trimming the excess in management/administr
ation then no-one will mind that.
Sussex Community NHS Trust wants to reduce staff numbers by 10%, or rather it wants to reduce numbers by 2% per year over the next five years. No-one needs to lose a job, natural wastage will be in excess of this figure.
sassy63
says...
4:50pm Tue 9 Aug 11
TheInsider
says...
4:54pm Tue 9 Aug 11
My friend who should be carrying out nursing management duties, such as managing patient lists and referrals and ensuring care is given by her team etc now spends days trying to get the trust to pay rent on the buildings, running to the corner shop to buy light bulbs because the buildings' management team has been axed and trying to sort out photocopying contracts because the admin' team have been axed.
She said it makes her sick to read that managers are useless and pointless as she now does her day job in her own time. This goodwill is wearing thin.
Did you really think that management posts were in place for no reason and that the NHS had any surplus staff?
it's the processes which are the problem not overstaffing.
Complex commerical processes and beauracracy which have to be manned. The more complex they are, they more staff you need.
Now jobs have been cut, the same work has to be done by fewer people and when there is a choice between making sure the buildings are still being rented, phone bills paid to keep a service open, that comes before patient care.
I spent the weekend with HNS nurses and the stories of the impact of cuts were horrific.
Don't believe some of the cra* you read in some newspapers about lazy managers or a surplus of managers.
It's now impacting on patient care and waiting lists which speak for themselves.
Morpheus
says...
6:05pm Tue 9 Aug 11
Grendel wrote:How would you suggest that we would have manged if the banking system had collapsed?
"more for less" - what a pile of rubbish. Public money is effectively being transferred from public services to bankers; and we are letting it happen.
jarmonesque
says...
7:22pm Tue 9 Aug 11
Thumper Hove wrote:Thumper, the people overseeing the cuts are those managers/administrat
Has anyone actually read the facts in the article rather than just the headline?
There could be a reduction in posts, over the next five years. That's not the same as the headline claims....its unlike the Argus to have misleading headlines!!
It also doesn't say where these posts are. If its losing doctors/nurses then everyone should speak up, but if its trimming the excess in management/administr
ation then no-one will mind that.
Sussex Community NHS Trust wants to reduce staff numbers by 10%, or rather it wants to reduce numbers by 2% per year over the next five years. No-one needs to lose a job, natural wastage will be in excess of this figure.
ors: Turkeys never vote for xmas
Grendel says...
11:12am Tue 9 Aug 11