Hundreds of jobs to go at top hospital

One of the country’s best-rated and wealthiest NHS hospitals is cutting hundreds of jobs.

At least 360 posts, including frontline staff, are expected to be axed at the Univer­sity College London Hospital following a major drop in funding and fewer contracts from the primary care trust.

It was named ‘hospital of the year’ in 2009.

Chief executive Sir Robert Naylor told the Camden New Journal that ‘low priority treatments’ would no longer be provided for free and that job cuts would be focused on administration and the ‘back office’.

He added: “If we have fewer contracts from the primary care trust to treat patients, and we do less work, then we must have fewer staff. Any business runs like that. We flex our staff numbers up and down all the time.”

Campaigners have come out against the move, and are planning a demonstration at the hospital on May 17, while constituency MP, Frank Dobson, a former Labour health secretary, is speaking about the job losses at a public meeting at Camden Town Hall on Monday.