Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust

600 jobs
Number of planned job losses

Announcement Date

17 May 2006

Employment effect (start)

Foreseen end date

Description

A NHS trust accused of failing to manage its budget effectively by the health secretary has told MPs it may have to cut 600 posts to save money. Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust has briefed four MPs about plans to 'reduce costs in non-clinical areas'. They believe the move would be a 'massive blow for the town' and 'undermine the viability of Horton Hospital'. The trust said there were no plans to close the emergency unit at the Horton. The briefed MPs though stressed that the refusal of the government to give local NHS trusts enough time to achieve financial balance has made huge job losses, including redundancies, inevitable. After the meeting outlining proposed changes to the county's services on Wednesday, 17 May 2006, the briefed MPs described the situation as 'looking bleak', adding that it is going to mean longer waiting times, undermining the viability of Horton hospital as a general hospital. In a statement, the Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust said: 'The trust is currently developing proposals to improve performance and reduce costs, in the light of the funding pressures in the Thames Valley. Our proposals will mean that we have to reduce the number of staff we employ. While in the longer term this may mean some compulsory redundancies, we do not yet know how many people this will affect’. 'We are working to reduce our staff numbers, but are looking at a range of measures such as stopping our use of agency staff, freezing vacant posts and moving people into vacant posts.'

The health union Unison described the situation facing Oxfordshire as "particularly unfair". The full extent of the reductions will be announced by the end of the month, when the trust speaks to the county's NHS staff.

Sources

• 17 May 2006: BBC Website