£13.5M HOSPITAL CUTBACKS
There are fears for services at the region's three major hospitals after managers revealed plans for widespread cuts in a bid to save £13.5m from its budget. The savings will need to be made by April next year. HOSPITAL managers must cut £13.5m from their budget in just eight months. Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust has identified 20 areas where cutbacks will be made. Managers today stressed services would not suffer as a result. But patient groups and public service union officials claimed such drastic cuts would result in lower standards of care or longer waiting lists. The trust, which covers Hull Royal Infirmary, Castle Hill and Princess Royal Hospital, already had a £5.4m deficit from last year. It blamed that on the introduction of consultant contracts by the Department of Health and the expense of sending patients for treatment at private clinics in a bid to reduce waiting lists. Now it is aiming to claw that back, plus another £5.4m as a cushion in case there are other unexpected costs arising this year. All this comes on top of savings demanded by the Department of Health, which has asked for £4.7m this year, 1.7 per cent of the annual budget. The trust says it has already made some cutbacks, leaving £13.5m left to find over the next eight months. Plans include reducing the number of temporary nurses it uses in a bid to save £3.3m and cutting overtime for support staff, an estimated saving of another £50,000. Security spending is also under scrutiny, with a view to cut £40,000 out of the annual bill. The use of taxis for patients will also be reduced, aiming to save another £120,000. The trust also hopes to save £180,000 from reducing the number of meals it orders and £600,000 by changing rota's in operating theatres. It says it will do this by putting surgeons on a new system that will allow them to perform more operations during one shift. Chief executive Stephen Greep admitted times were difficult, but said he was confident savings could be made without services being affected. He said there would be more full-time employees, which would be "more efficient" than relying on expensive agency nurses. Despite the ambitious aims, the trust had already overspent by £2.2m this year before embarking on the cost reduction programme. Nurse Thelma Gray, branch secretary for public service union Unison, described the targets as "unrealistic". She said: "They won't make that recovery. They are already £2.2m overspent this year. "I worry about what they will do next when they realise they won't make it. "I fear redundancies and ward closures." The trust is even considering charging staff for car parking and hopes to pull in £120,000 a year by doing so. That move is likely to be highly unpopular with workers, and Unison has already said it will not even enter discussions on parking charges. Ruth Marsden, chair of the Public Patient Involvement Forum, said: "Something has got to give. It will mean rationing facilities and longer waiting lists or closing wards and laying off staff." Just last week, the Mail revealed the trust was given a rating of just one star by a Government watchdog for failing to perform well financially. Mr Greep said: "We are trying to get back to financial balance without directly affecting patient care. "Many trusts are making people redundant, but we don't plan to do that. It's up to us to get back on track."
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