Is reaction to news
up injuries or care concerns.”
He concluded: “Given the sums of money involved you won’t be surprised to know that we have some way to go on this before it is finally approved as affordable by our CCGs, regulators and the Government.”
A trade union leader said the impact of job losses had not been explained yet.
Natalie Ratcliffe, regional organiser for Unison, said: “479 jobs to go over the next decade is worrying – there are not enough staff now.
“The agency staff bill is sky high and the Trust is already going overseas to recruit. We have been told that jobs will be redesigned HEALTH campaigners reacted with anger at the new revelations.
A statement from Let’s Save HRI, headed by campaigner Karl Deitch, said: “Whilst we have not yet had an opportunity to assess the limited information made available by Calderdale and Huddersfield hospitals and the two CCGs, we are utterly dismayed to hear that what is now proposed as a replacement for Huddersfield Royal Infirmary is effectively a community hospital with half the number of beds indicated during the consultation period.
“This is a total betrayal of local people by those NHS organisations charged with responsibility for our healthcare and a further indication of how but I suspect this means health care assistants and nurses taking on more duties to cut costs.
“We were also told jobs may go into the community to bring care closer to home. “How this will work who knows? “The trust has not approached Unison with any kind of proposal.
“Unison are at present sceptical of the reconfiguration and we do not see it as the safest option.
“The reconfiguration will impact on surrounding acute trusts that are on their knees.
“Our local NHS needs to be adequately funded. We will do everything in our power to protect our members and fight for a safe environment for patients.” the leaders of those local NHS bodies have misled our community throughout this flawed consultation process.
“We can have no confidence whatsoever in any of the plans being proposed by these people and we urge the people of Huddersfield and district once again to demonstrate their total opposition to these changes.
“Additionally, and in light of repeated failings by the trust and the two CCGs, we call for the immediate removal from office of all the board members of the trust and the two CCGs.
“Their actions – and their contempt for local people – have demonstrated that they cannot be considered to be credible and are clearly unsuitable and incapable
Anna Basford, director of transformation and partnerships at the Trust said: “The reduction in workforce numbers will be as a result of the consolidation of services onto a planned and unplanned site.
“It also will come as a result of the workforce benefits we will see from this, including clinical rota resilience and reducing agency and locum spend.
“We do not anticipate there to be any redundancies as a part of these proposals as some of these posts are currently unfilled and we expect that the workforce will reduce through retirements and personal job choice over the next decade.” of running our health services.
“They must resign, or be removed from office, with immediate effect.”
Mike Forster, chairman of Official Hands Off HRI, said: “It’s disgraceful, it’s a further step back from the original proposal that we didn’t agree with. A second PFI just adds farce to the tragedy that already exists.
“It will end up costing taxpayers and the public far more than they lay out. We now look to the councillors to oppose this ridiculous proposal.
“We’ve already got our solicitor on standby so it’s game on.“