A CRISIS-hit health trust may have to cut twice as many jobs as first feared as it faces a é28m funding defecit.

Yesterday the M.E.N. reported that the Pennine Acute Trust - which runs North Manchester General, Rochdale Infirmary, the Royal Oldham Hospital and Fairfield Hospital, in Bury - plans to axe 800 jobs.

But it has now emerged that the defecit at the trust - where former chief executive Chris Appleby faced a vote of no confidence from staff - is much bigger than first revealed.

Now leading doctors and union officials - who have called for a public inquiry into the crisis - fear the true scale of job cuts could be as many as 1,500 or one-in-seven jobs.

David Heyes, MP for Ashton under Lyne, said: "If we had known the scale of the problem earlier we might have been able to intervene successfully and this announcement might not never have had to be made."

Stephanie Thomas, head of health union Unison, said: "Staff are calling wanting to know which departments will be affected but the trust had not told us the scale of the debts or discussed the details of the cuts with us."

Fairfield Hospital

Alan Russell, a doctor at Fairfield Hospital in Bury and deputy chairman of the British Medical Association's consultant's committee, believes the crisis has been prompted by government targets and fears that the trust cannot survive the cuts.

He said: "I don't want a single person to lose their job but as it stands I would be pleased if only 800 posts went. My fears are it will be worse, up to 1,500 jobs, as a result of the current financial problems. The management problems at Pennine are well documented but I believe the financial issue is a national problem caused by government targets and demands.

"Pennine is known to be `cheap and cheerful'. I don't see what can be cut without cutting beds and to make real savings you have to cut wards. This will impact on patient care."

Coun Jean Ashworth, who works at Rochdale Infirmary, said: Staff are devastated by the news and want answers."

Bosses at the Pennine Trust - which has an annual budget of more than é400 million and more than 9,000 staff - say the financial problems have been caused by a debt of é9m which it inherited when it was created in 2002, changes to the national funding system and the rising cost of providing services.

"They say it currently spends é1.08 to provide what the government says should cost é1 in its services.

Style

Pennine's acting chief executive Bob Chadwick - appointed after Mr Appleby, whose management style was heavily criticised in an official report, left with a é475,000 payoff - says he cannot rule out compulsory redundancies.

He said: "The trust employs 10,000 staff and we lose 1,000 every year through natural turnover. We hope that will help but we can't rule out compulsory redundancies, though we will keep them to the minimum.

"We will not be making 800 people redundant. We will become more efficient but we will not compromise patients' safety.

"We would like to see patients in hospital for a shorter length of time, more patients treated as day cases and also people being treated outside the hospital setting."

Funding changes means hospitals will in future be paid a set national fee for each procedure they perform, rather than negotiating contracts locally. And from this year a trust must clear their historic debts.

Bosses of Bolton Hospital, who cut 86 posts without compulsory redundancies last year, say they can't rule out redundancies as part of crucial cost cutting over the next 12 months. Tweet