03.06.16
Up to 450 jobs face axe at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust
Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust has announced that it is cutting 450 jobs in a bid to balance its funding.
Following a public board meeting yesterday, the trust confirmed that it is opening a consultation on “the redeployment of staff”, which is expected to affect 250 permanent and 200 temporary staff.
The consultation will run from 4 July to 18 August, before the final staffing decisions are made in the autumn.
Raffaela Goodby, director of organisational development at the trust, said: “Like all NHS organisations, we need to deliver safe care within a budget.
“We have been explicit for several years with our staff, trade union partners, local taxpayers and NHS commissioners, that this will involve reducing the amount we spend on our pay costs, whilst increasing and protecting staff training spend. This has regularly been featured in the local media and is no surprise.”
Frank Keogh, regional officer for union Unite, said that at a time when the population is growing and the demand for new treatments rising, “we strongly deplore the announcement that up to 450 jobs are under threat at the Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust”.
“This is yet another depressing example of this government’s underfunding of the NHS and the buck for this dismal state of affairs stops with the health secretary Jeremy Hunt whose stewardship of the NHS since 2012 has been little short of disastrous,” he added.
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