London: NHS trust to axe up to 150 posts

Up to 150 jobs are to be cut by an NHS trust after it was told to balance its books by the Department of Health - according to the BBC.

St George's Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs St George's Hospital in Tooting, south London, has been told to make an additional £10m of savings. The trust said services would be "unaffected" by the cuts, which will be mostly among administration staff.

Consultants' hours will also be cut to save £1.2m, which the trust says will prevent a further 60 job losses. The consultants are each being asked to reduce their work by two hours a week.

Mike Bailey, one of the trust's medical directors, said clinics would be unaffected as consultants were only being asked to cut their work on "administrative tasks".

A spokeswoman for the British Medical Association said: "It is hard to see how this will not affect patient care. We are concerned that patients will suffer."

St George's, which reported a deficit of £11.5m at the end of the last financial year, is the latest NHS trust to announce redundancies.

Thousands denied eye drug over NHS costs

The Times is reporting today that thousands of patients whose sight could be saved by a new drug are being denied treatment on the NHS on the ground of cost.

Macugen, a new treatment for age-related macular degeneration, is launched today but primary care trusts (PCTs) are already telling patients that they will not pay for it.

A quarter of a million people in Britain suffer from "wet" AMD, the form of the disease that Macugen can treat. Every year, 21,000 more people, mostly over 60, have this form of the disease diagnosed.

But Macugen has not yet been cleared by NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, and will not be for at least another year.

Specialists fear that many patients will go blind while they wait. The delay has been condemned by the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB)which has given warning that many patients will lose their sight before a decision is made on approving the drug.

NHS deficits cast a long shadow

The warning signs have been flashing for a while, but it was only last week that a clearer picture emerged of the way NHS deficits have impacted on mental health services, reports The Guardian.

A report from Rethink, the mental health charity, concludes that mental health is being disproportionately hit by NHS belt-tightening in the wake of deficits estimated at around £700m.

The report, A Cut Too Far, identifies £30m-worth of cuts in mental health services across England and suggests that further cuts are likely as trusts struggle to balance their books.

If Rethink is correct, then it means that despite repeated reassurances from government that all areas of mental health are a high priority, the reality is that when other parts of the NHS are struggling financially, it is - as usual - the "Cinderella service" of acute mental health provision that is squeezed.

GP surgeries 'bursting at seams'

Three-quarters of GP practices are "bursting at the seams" and will soon be unsuitable for care, a survey says - according to the BBC.

Doctors said they did not have enough space to add any more services, with one surgery reporting it had used the staff room to administer vaccinations.

GPs said the snapshot poll of 251 surgeries by the British Medical Association cast doubt on plans to move care from hospitals to the community.

But ministers said the findings did not present the full picture. At the beginning of the year, the government unveiled plans to invest more in community NHS services in England.

They said GPs in the future would provide a whole range of extra services such as diabetes clinics and minor surgeries.

But doctors from across the UK told the BMA that the NHS's 11,000 practices risked not filling their potential because of a lack of funding.

More jobs go with health cuts

Health Minister Andy Burnham has announced a fresh round of NHS redundancies, reports The Times. The number of Primary Care Trusts (PCT) is to be cut by half and major changes made to health helpline NHS Direct.

The 303 PCTs in England are to me merged into 152, to save £250 million a year, but redundancy costs in the first year have been estimated at £320 million.

Mr Burnham also announced that the 29 ambulance trusts would be merged into 12, starting in July.

He said: "Changes of this kind are inevitably difficult. We have not sought to impose a single blueprint on the NHS but have listened carefully to representations."

Stephen O’Brien, the Conservative health spokesman, branded the moves "change for change’s sake" and warned ministers about the effect on staff morale.

NHS Direct faces the closure of 12 call centres and the loss of hundreds of jobs. The telephone helpline provides a 24-hour advice service to patients across England, but needs to find savings to repay a £15 million deficit (not even one day's worth of our contribution to the EU's audit-failing budget). Smaller NHS Direct centres in Doncaster, York, Cambridge, Scunthorpe, Chester, Bolton, Preston, Chorley, Southport, Croydon, Brighton and Kensington are to close.

Karen Jennings, the head of health at Unison, called the job losses a "crushing blow".

She said, "These cuts are very short-sighted. NHS Direct takes up to 25,000 calls a day and cutting the service will put immediate pressure on GP surgeries and A&E departments, particularly at night, weekends and Bank Holidays."

Number of trusts to be halved in health reforms

Ambulance and local health trusts are to be cut by half, the Government announced yesterday in its latest re-organisation of the NHS in England.

The Department of Health said the amalgamations would produce savings of £250 million a year to be diverted to frontline services but could not say how many jobs might be lost, reports the Daily Telegraph.

The changes will cut the number of primary care trusts (PCTs) from 303 to 152 and ambulance trusts from 29 to 12.

"At this stage it is not possible to calculate the number of job losses or associated costs of redundancies," a spokesman said.

Hospital cuts 'could hit jobs'

Health bosses in charge of three Derby hospitals have said that staff redundancies cannot be ruled out to make £15m worth of savings this financial year - reports the BBC.

The Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust runs three hospitals include the Derby City General Hospital and the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary.

Health officials said they were trying to avoid job losses by leaving posts vacant and using fewer agency staff. But the chief executive of the trust has said that these solutions may not work in all cases and job cuts may have to be made.

Half of all NHS hospitals can't afford to replace midwives

The Daily Telegraph reports today that more than one in three hospitals are cutting budgets for maternity care as the National Health Service financial crisis deepens.

The cuts mean that almost half of all health trusts are not replacing midwives who leave the service, according to research by the Royal College of Midwives (RCM).

Meanwhile, one in four heads of midwifery have also been forced to reduce home visits and 10 per cent are cutting back on home births, despite NHS guidance that women should be allowed to opt for such a procedure.

Last night, the RCM's general secretary, Dame Karlene Davis, said: "Mothers need to be reassured that they will have the caring support of the midwife they know, and in the situation which best suits their family. This is very important and if the knee-jerk reaction to funding is to freeze recruitment and further reduce the number of midwives, then everyone can see it makes it difficult to achieve."

The results of the survey come ahead of this week's RCM conference where Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, is expected to face further grassroots anger over cuts.

Manchester: Trust to cut 10% of staff, pushing NHS job losses to 10,000

The largest NHS trust in the north-west of England announced plans to axe nearly 10% of its staff yesterday in an attempt to eliminate a £21m deficit - reports The Guardian.

Pennine Acute trust said it would remove 800 posts at its hospitals in Bury, north Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale - one of the largest job losses to emerge since the NHS went into a period of retrenchment two months ago.

The public sector union Unison said it was a disgrace that the cuts had been announced without any consultation with staff representatives. Nurses heard that their jobs might be at risk from the radio while eating their breakfast.

Manchester: Job cuts at four more hospitals

The NHS health trust which runs four Greater Manchester hospitals could axe up to 800 posts as it struggles to cope with a deficit of £21m, reports the BBC.

The cuts would be made by Penine Acute Trust at North Manchester General, Royal Oldham, Rochdale Infirmary and Fairfield General Hospital in Bury. C

ompulsory redundancies are not being ruled out, but the trust said this would be a last resort.