
NHS trusts are losing the staff necessary to deliver the government’s 10-year plan for the NHS, health union Unison warned today.
Nearly 150 jobs will be cut under restructuring plans at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUHNFT), which the union said are due to central funding cuts.
The compulsory redundancy scheme opened just a week after the government unveiled its flagship reforms package.
Unison Eastern head of health Caroline Hennessy said that the plan is “make or break for the NHS.”
“But delivering improved care and using better technology relies on administrators, comms officers, operations managers and many other expert staff now anxiously awaiting their P45s,” she said.
“Even without ambitious plans for the future, these jobs are needed to keep the trust running. Front-line staff rely on support workers to deliver care.
“The NHS needs real investment, not savage cuts, to meet the challenges ahead.”
Threatened staff include administrators, booking co-ordinators, project managers, clinical educators, operations managers and communications officers working at Addenbrooke’s and Rosie hospitals.
NHS bosses in May warned that they were planning “previously unthinkable” cuts to try to balance the books.
The Department of Health and Social Care responded at the time that it had “underlined the need for trusts to cut bureaucracy to invest even further in the front line so we can support hard-working staff and deliver a better service for patients and taxpayers’ money.”
NHS Providers, which represents health managers, said services at risk from the “eye-watering” cutbacks include diabetes care for young people, rehab centres and talking therapies.
Unison said that hundreds of staff at CUHNFT have already left via mutually agreed resignations and voluntary redundancy schemes.
The trust was contacted for comment.

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