250 jobs axed at Dudley hospitals to save £7.5m
More than 250 posts have been axed at Dudley's hospital trust during the past year in a bid to save £7.5 million.
These include 33 voluntary and eight compulsory redundancies, bosses at Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust said.
Two hundred positions have been scrapped by not filling vacancies as they have arisen and work is also under way to find alternative roles for a further 13 staff. Five workers have already been redeployed.
Health chiefs at the trust, which runs Russells Hall Hospital, are bidding to balance the books in the wake of Government funding cuts.
They have pledged to protect frontline staff including midwives, ward and community nurses and say compulsory redundancies would always be a last resort.
Chief executive Paula Clark said: "Voluntary redundancies totalled 33 and those staff left by March 31. A further 26 posts were identified for compulsory redundancy as part of our workforce reduction programme for 2014/15.
"Of the 26, eight posts were made compulsory redundant and left the organisation on March 31. A further five have been successfully redeployed.
"We continue to seek redeployment opportunities for the remaining 13 staff, some of whom are already on a trial period for redeployment.
"As vacancies arise, we are proactively matching the skills required for the post with those of staff on the redeployment register and will continue to do this until their notice period expires.
"We have also permanently removed 200 posts out of the funded budget by actively reviewing vacancies all year as they arose. All these measures have allowed us to make the necessary £7.5 million savings whilst safeguarding as many jobs as possible.
"We continue to assess workforce requirements for the coming years based on service demand."
Dudley North MP Ian Austin said he was concerned about the job losses.
"Like any other local family we queue up at Russells Hall when we're ill, so I'm concerned that the hospital has already lost more than 200 jobs.
"I know they are trying to reduce compulsory redundancies and find some staff other work, but people are still losing their jobs and the cutbacks are a disaster for our local hospital.
"Local people share my concerns that it's just not possible to lose these jobs without an impact on the care and treatment people receive."
As part of the staffing review, the hospital trust has introduced a director-led vacancy control panel that scrutinises every single request to fill a vacant post. All requests are subject to a rigorous quality impact assessment and only those deemed necessary to maintain high quality of care to patients are approved.
Bosses have been reviewing the positions of temporary staff, those on fixed-term contracts, and bank and agency workers.
