Radical plans to cut 10% NHS staff in Tayside.

NHS TAYSIDE: Board has to plug hole in its finances by shrinking workforce

A plan to slash NHS Tayside’s workforce by 10% has sparked anger.

Bosses at the health board aim to get rid of 1,300 posts to plug the hole in its finances, official papers revealed.

They say they can do that over several years through “natural staff turnover”, but it is feared cuts to backroom staffing will have an impact on patients.

The decision to shrink the workforce comes as the board benefits from having at least £62 million of debt written off by the Scottish Government, which has backed Tayside’s staff plan.

The plans are revealed in an assurance report to the board from September. It said there was an “acceptance that staff levels need to reduce by 10%”.

Gillian Murray, who has been campaigning for better mental health services after failings in the care of her late uncle, said the decision shows that “balancing the books obviously means more to them than saving lives”.

“People in Dundee are dying because NHS Tayside is an absolute shambles and to cut the workforce is another slap in the face for all of us,” she added.

Scottish Labour’s Monica Lennon said stripping 1,300 jobs from the organisation is a “recipe for disaster” and warned of the impact on patient safety and staff wellbeing.

“The financial chaos and risk that has plagued NHS Tayside is not the fault of its loyal and dedicated workforce, nor is it fair on the patients,” she said.

Murdo Fraser, the Conservative MSP in Perthshire, said: “Local people will be wondering what impact these massive reductions in staff will have on their already pressured services.”

Scott Arthur, a Labour councillor in Edinburgh whose wife trained at NHS Tayside, tweeted: “It sounds like someone at NHS Tayside has asked Baldrick if he had a cunning plan to solve the problems there.”

Last year senior NHS executives were told to look at reducing staff numbers by the man appointed by the Scottish Government to improve its finances.

In an action plan for the board, Lewis Ritchie, chairman of the NHS Tayside Assurance and Advisory Group, said they should carry out a “comprehensive

It sounds like someone at NHS Tayside has asked Baldrick if he had a cunning plan to solve the problems there

review of staffing levels across all services and sites” and “identify safe options for bringing redesigned services and sites within available resources”.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “It is right that NHS Tayside keeps its workforce under review.

“It is the responsibility of individual health boards to deliver good workforce planning, making sure that they have the right people with the right skills in the right place.”

He added they have raised Tayside’s funding for day-to-day spending by 9% between 2010-11 and 2018-19.

Annie Ingram, NHS Tayside director of workforce, said no one will lose their job but said their spending on the workforce is higher than health boards of a similar size.

She added: “We are carrying out an organisation-wide review of staff numbers, grades and skills, which is being carried out in partnership with our staff and our trades unions, to ensure we have a safe, affordable and sustainable workforce.”

The corporate phrase “doing more with less” often rears its head when bosses decide to slash jobs.

Health chiefs in Tayside say their workforce is bigger than others and a reduction of about 10% is part of their drive to run a more efficient service.

It will be the back office rather than the frontline who bear the brunt these cuts.

While we are told no-one will lose their jobs, staff are likely to see departing colleagues not replaced and roles disappearing altogether.

The worry is that the strain will be felt not just in admin departments, but will filter through to patient care.

NHS Tayside insists that can be avoided and the changes are in response to the shift in having more care delivered within communities.

But it is hard to escape the fact that this strategy is born from a demand to balance the books rather than what is best for patients.

There are not many examples of organisations which are better off with fewer staff when service demand is increasing, even with technological advances revolutionising the way we work.

The NHS will be under strain from a growing ageing population like never before in the coming years.

Staff and the patients they serve deserve better than doing more with less.