By Tash Shifrin
11 February 2010
Leicester University Hospitals NHS Trust is planning to shed around 700 jobs in a year as the health service spending squeeze starts to hurt.
Another 180 jobs are set to go at London’s Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust and other health service organisations face similar decisions as they wait for publication of the 2010/11 NHS treatments tariff.
Although primary care trusts will receive an average 5.5% funding increase for 2010/11, the tariff – set to be published as Public Finance went to press – will squeeze hospital providers ahead of future funding reductions and a required efficiency saving of £10bn by 2012/13.
It will set a 0% increase in the standard prices paid by PCTs for hospital treatment, but a reduced price of just 30% of tariff rates will apply to activity above contracted levels – a device aimed at forcing the NHS to reduce demand.
The Leicester trust has reacted by imposing a vacancy freeze to cut jobs through ‘natural wastage’, among measures aimed at stripping £58.5m from the 2010/11 budget. It estimates that 60 to 70 staff leave each month, from a total of 12,000 – or 10,700 full-time equivalents.
The vacancy freeze will be applied to posts regarded as ‘non-essential’ to patient care. Other measures that will be ‘explored further’ include termination of fixed-term contracts, voluntary redundancies and a review of administrative jobs.
Trust chief executive Malcolm Lowe-Lauri said: ‘There are two jobs we need to focus on; the first is to control costs and eliminate waste this year. The second is to use the next 12 months wisely to prepare for the fact there is likely to be no increase in funding from 2011. Together, we will need to make some tough decisions over the next year.’
Papers for the trust’s February board meeting said the cuts would allow it to produce a £1m end-of-year surplus. It noted financial pressures such as £24.4m for inflation, £9.9m of planned developments, £6m of additional demand for services and £5.9m for rising drug costs.
The Royal Free is also aiming to save about £50m, despite having ended the year in financial surplus. A spokeswoman said the trust was ‘looking to disestablish about 180 posts’. Two-thirds of these would be lost through natural wastage.
11 February 2010
Leicester University Hospitals NHS Trust is planning to shed around 700 jobs in a year as the health service spending squeeze starts to hurt.
Another 180 jobs are set to go at London’s Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust and other health service organisations face similar decisions as they wait for publication of the 2010/11 NHS treatments tariff.
Although primary care trusts will receive an average 5.5% funding increase for 2010/11, the tariff – set to be published as Public Finance went to press – will squeeze hospital providers ahead of future funding reductions and a required efficiency saving of £10bn by 2012/13.
It will set a 0% increase in the standard prices paid by PCTs for hospital treatment, but a reduced price of just 30% of tariff rates will apply to activity above contracted levels – a device aimed at forcing the NHS to reduce demand.
The Leicester trust has reacted by imposing a vacancy freeze to cut jobs through ‘natural wastage’, among measures aimed at stripping £58.5m from the 2010/11 budget. It estimates that 60 to 70 staff leave each month, from a total of 12,000 – or 10,700 full-time equivalents.
The vacancy freeze will be applied to posts regarded as ‘non-essential’ to patient care. Other measures that will be ‘explored further’ include termination of fixed-term contracts, voluntary redundancies and a review of administrative jobs.
Trust chief executive Malcolm Lowe-Lauri said: ‘There are two jobs we need to focus on; the first is to control costs and eliminate waste this year. The second is to use the next 12 months wisely to prepare for the fact there is likely to be no increase in funding from 2011. Together, we will need to make some tough decisions over the next year.’
Papers for the trust’s February board meeting said the cuts would allow it to produce a £1m end-of-year surplus. It noted financial pressures such as £24.4m for inflation, £9.9m of planned developments, £6m of additional demand for services and £5.9m for rising drug costs.
The Royal Free is also aiming to save about £50m, despite having ended the year in financial surplus. A spokeswoman said the trust was ‘looking to disestablish about 180 posts’. Two-thirds of these would be lost through natural wastage.
- - Up to 2,000 jobs could be lost at Birmingham City Council as the authority moves towards more of a commissioning role and begins to face up to looming financial difficulties. The authority’s financial plan, published this week, said: ‘[The] outlook beyond 2010/11 is extremely challenging, largely as a result of the expected reduction in government grants in the light of the pressure on the public finances’.
