UP to 300 jobs could be lost and patient care hit as the Royal United Hospital NHS Trust in Bath announces it is £8m in the red.
The 650-bed hospital, which employs 3,500 staff, has announced it needs to make £13.2 in savings in the next financial year just to break even.
Unison South West representative Liz French said: "If these job cuts go ahead it would have a devastating effect on patient care and staff morale. "We are going to be working closely with the trust to see if we can make other cuts before we even look at frontline staff. There are other ways of doing it but whatever happens it will have an impact on the number of patients treated if we lose staff.
"It is a very difficult situation." Mark Davies, RUH chief executive, said: "It is disappointing we have to take action, especially given the hard work of our staff and the success we have had in meeting NHS targets, but it is imperative that like every other organisation we live within our means."
The hospital plans to reduce costs by discharging or transferring patients as soon as clinically appropriate', to close all additional beds opened over the winter and to stop using all agency staff from next month.
It is hoped these and other measures will help reduce the number of redundancies made, possibly to about 100 or fewer.
advertisement
The shock announcement is the latest in a round of health cuts across the country as the NHS struggles to save money. More than 3,000 job cuts have been announced by NHS trusts across the country in the last month.
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
Print
Email this
