Up to 300 posts could be at risk at the health trust which runs Rochdale Infirmary, it has been revealed. Bosses at the Pennine Acute Trust (PAT), which runs services at the hospital, need to cut another £13m from the budget before April.
Acting finance director Barbara Herring told a recent meeting with union officials 200 to 300 posts at the trust could potentially be lost, according to documents seen by the Observer.
In a letter sent to staff last week, chief executive John Saxby did not rule out the possibility of more job cuts – but insisted no decision has been made.
He wrote: "Since February last year we have reduced the number of posts by 450 through normal staff turnover, redeployment and two waves of the trust’s voluntary severance scheme.
"We have also successfully redeployed over 800 staff into new roles across the trust as we have transformed and reshaped the services we provide.
"Last year I said that the trust had never had to resort to compulsory redundancies in the past as a way of balancing its budget and I did not see any reason why we would need to resort to such measures.
"We stuck to that commitment."
The Observer revealed last month that the trust needs to save £56m by April as opposed to £43m originally planned. This is as a result of primary care trusts sending fewer patients to the trust for planned outpatient and surgical procedures.
Mr Saxby added: "Putting it simply – with a reduced budget we have less money to spend on our services.
"We are currently working through what this additional level of budget reduction will mean for the trust and for our services and staff across all our sites.
"The medical and nursing directors have set up a new quality impact assessment process, in line with national guidance, to make sure that patient safety and quality is not compromised.
"While we haven’t had to resort to redundancies in the past, given the scale of the challenge we now face, and will continue to face throughout next year, we have to consider all options for living within our budget and it would be irresponsible for us to rule anything out.
"We will do everything we can to minimise the impact on staff."
Health campaigner Coun Jean Ashworth fears the impact further job cuts will have on front line services and in Rochdale.
She said: "The staff deserve to know what is going on.
"It is most unfair what they are doing and the main worry is that people’s lives will be put at risk.
"I have real concerns about the impact on services and the loss of staff.
"We have got to fight this and people need to speak out against it."
Last year the trust announced it was cutting 1,000 posts as part of plans to drastically reduce its budget by 2015.
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Will anybody be left at the hospital? What about the obligation to provide ADEQUATE health services.
With all these cuts happening, it's time Rochdale stopped taking in asylum seekers and yet more immigrants. The towns resources are increasingly over stretched and policies now need to be practical.
Sob story after sob story is in the news about people trekking half way round the world so they can disappear into the seedy shadows of Rochdales benefits culture, just another statistic, I won't get noticed, we can just slide in under the radar.
I would challenge Lamblert and Danczuk to explain what they are doing for the town of Rochdale? No heads above the parapet, no drive, no ambition. The good people of the town are increasingly forgotten whilst we focus on the underprivileged, the minorities, the thugs of crime.
Page after page in the Observer is bad news, crime, child grooming, drug dealing, assault...
When you go to the doctors the doctor appears staggered that they get to see somebody turn up in a shirt and tie, not another dossers, waiting rooms full of track suit bottoms and hoodies, people who can't speak English.
Would Dumbzuk feel safe walking around the town at night? Or would the head of Rochdale police? What about the drug dealing in Bamford precinct, is anything getting done?
No shops, a hotbed for payday loan companies, Falinge the benefits centre of the UK. A tram system that will go the wrong way to Manchester.
Local councillors moving party every time the wind changes, tit for tat politics. Schools that I won't send my kids to. Nothing for. The youths of Norden or Bamford to do yet the police are on their backs every weekend.
This town is now a disgrace and many of the good people of the town deserve a lot better. Stop focusing on the lost cause council estates and the scroungers and start putting the hard working people further up the list.
It seems to be forgotten that the way secondary services (hospitals) are now funded is designed to gradually phase out the publically funded NHS. Certain fixed sums to cover both staff and buildings are required if one is to have a safe service irrespective of the work load, and yet the money necessary for that is made up of notional costs for each patient procedure. If follows that if in one year insufficient patients are seen, the hospital will run out of money and shed staff. This destabilises the whole system and is no basis for sensible planning of services.
I think GP 2 is spot on. I moved to bamford in 1975 as it was a really nice place to live. I moved away from Rochdale in 2005 because I couldn't stand it any more. The town has suffered from poor civic leadership both councillors and senior officers for at least 20 years. I have watched as political parties have competed to give more to the "disadvantaged" iie the feckless. They have ignored the people who have contributed - writing them off as toffs or Tory voters. Consequently anyone with a bit of money who would create wealth and jobs has left disillusioned.
I find it all very sad but I think that it's gone too far now to be reversed. The town is finished.
Is it not time that Saxby et al were sacked from ( I will not say running ) ,being grossly paid for being employed by PAT ? Along with them sack Impact partnership ,most of the councillors and especially the Party leaders ,and those electoral traitors who have switched parties,whilst still collecting their salaries ,whilst not facing a fresh election.
Democracy has become a dirty word in Rochdale. Why not put PAT in special measures as a failed trust ,as it surely has become? It is fairly obvious that the medium to longterm goal is to close ALL hospital services in Rochdale,so why not be honest and admit that? Time for what is left of working ,non druggies in Rochdale to take some action ,and demand fresh elections and more accountabllity from yhr clowns running the circus.
redeployment does not save money, over 800 people redeployed is still 800 people in new jobs where either jobs didn't exist before, or have been retitled.
perhaps they could all become parking attendants to monitor the new parking regieme?
Well said GP2 ,cannot fault what you say.