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Top e-government news, updated daily, and regular features from the top people in the public sector.
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| £47m cash shortfall puts jobs in firing line |
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A hospital is being forced to axe up to 100 jobs as it battles with crippling debts. Queen Elizabeth Hospital NHS Trust in Stadium Road hopes to reduce its costs by £10million over the next year.
But the hospital maintains it has no plans to close wards, beds or services as it tries to make its services more cost-effective. Redundancies are to be made across the board, particularly in the management and administrative departments. Some vacant posts are to be frozen and the use of agency staff is to be reduced.
The trust's auditors, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, issued a public interest report at the end of last year, saying due to the high fixed repayments the hospital makes to its Private Finance Initiative (PFI) partners, its cash shortfall is due to reach £47million by the end of this year.
This is set to be exacerbated by the national changes to hospital funding being made under the Government's Payment By Results system.
Hospital chief executive John Pelly said: "The majority of the savings will be made through reducing non-pay expenditure [hospital supplies] and the use of temporary staff, and by freezing or removing staff vacancies. "We have no plans to reduce the range or quality of services provided at Queen Elizabeth Hospital and do not expect to do so in the near future."
But chairman of the Patients' Forum William Bruce said: "It's extremely sad and we are very concerned that it has come to this. |
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