A DEBT-RIDDEN hospital is to cut up to 100 jobs as part of plans to save £10m this year.

Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Stadium Road, Woolwich, announced the proposals in line with a nationwide programme aimed at reducing debts crippling the NHS.

Staff at the hospital which is facing spiralling debts of £100m will be made redundant or redeployed to other posts.

Those facing the axe include nurses, office staff and managers.

Chief executive John Pelly says a series of measures are being proposed to cut costs.

These include:

  • Closing the hospital's Hippos Day Care children's unit, which has seven beds, and axing six posts on the ward, putting five nurses at risk of redundancy;
  • Closing six beds on the stroke unit in July to save £75,000, plus a further 19 bed closures between May and October to recoup £300,000;
  • Introducing "selective bed closures" on non-surgical wards over the summer months when demand is lower;
  • Developing electronic recruitment to save about £150,000 on advertising costs;
  • Reducing "unnecessary" tests carried out on patients, to save £65,000.

Plans to reduce the hospital's costs were announced on March 20 as hospital bosses held emergency meetings with staff and set in motion a 30-day consultation period, which will end on April 20.

The cost-cutting measures are subject to approval by the hospital trust's board but Mr Pelly admitted the proposals were "most likely to happen".

Medics working at the hospital, which opened in 2001 under the Government's Private Finance Initiative and has 2,500 full and part-time staff, have called News Shopper expressing fears the plans will impact on the quality of patient care.

One nurse who works on the Hippos Day Care children's unit, who asked not to be named, said: "We are going to fight this.

"This ward provides an important service and it will put too much pressure on the children's ward to take on the work we do.

"The nurses on this ward are trained in important skills, such as taking blood from children, and there are not many nurses on the main children's ward trained to do this."

Another nurse said: "We're already understaffed. We can't take any more cuts. I feel I can't do my job properly because I can't give patients the level of care and attention they deserve.

"This will lead to complaints and patient care will definitely be affected."

Mr Pelly denied this, saying: "We are focusing on ways to deliver services more cost effectively rather than cutting back on the services themselves.

"We are also planning to increase revenue by offering new services which will earn us more money from Greenwich Primary Care Trust (PCT)."

One proposed new service will include offering breast cancer patients the option to have reconstructive surgery during a mastectomy.

A staff memo from Sally Storey, director of human resources and organisational development at the hospital, leaked to News Shopper read: "This will undoubtedly be a difficult time across the whole trust."

  • Greenwich PCT is predicting "financial challenges" ahead after it was announced last week £10m would be taken from its financial allocation for 2006/07. The money will be put into a London-wide fund to support NHS organisations in difficulty across the capital.

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