Health bosses have sent letters to thousands of hospital staff suggesting they take redundancy – to give themselves 'the opportunity for extended travel'.

The letter, which has gone to all 3,600 workers at cash-strapped Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport, urges them to consider voluntary redundancy or reduced hours.

It says: “We have a number of project workstreams which are developing plans for improving our effectiveness and efficiency and reducing costs.

“One of the ideas is to ask every member of staff if they wish to consider their personal circumstances and apply, on a voluntary basis, to either adjust their hours of work or to leave the trust with a severance payment based on service.

“These policies might give you the opportunity for extended travel, take early retirement, or just spend more time with your family.”

The letter is signed by Nicola Reucroft, director of human resources at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust.

Staff were stunned to find it pinned to the back of their pay slips last month.

The Trust – which denies it has set a target for redundancies – has to find at least £7m savings on its £200m annual budget.

The move was attacked by union bosses.

Paul Foley, from Unison, said: "It's a bit of scaremongering from the trust.

“The whole idea is to try to get people to sell their jobs off on the cheap.

"The cleverly-worded letter is written like a sales pitch trying to entice people into taking this deal.

“Redundancy settlements in the health service are normally quite generous but this voluntary scheme is nothing more than the statutory minimum.

"The trust need to be open and honest. If they have got financial difficulties they need to talk to us and work with us.

"I would advise members very clearly to be very cautious about accepting this – they risk selling themselves short and could lose out financially in a significant way.”

Trust chiefs said the scheme was offered to staff as one of many options to cut costs in a difficult financial climate.

Ann Barnes, director of operations and performance at Stepping Hill hospital, said: "As part of our preparation for dealing with the economic downturn for all public sector organisations, we are looking at a number of initiatives to reduce the cost of running the hospital without affecting the high-quality of patient care we deliver.

"The voluntary severance scheme is designed to allow staff to leave the organisation on a voluntary basis and while we expect that there will be individuals interested in taking this up, there is no set target.

"No posts will go that affect direct patient care or the quality of our patient services.

"We have made no changes to our staffing cover arrangements. It has always been our policy to used NHS bank staff when overtime is required, as we do not believe it is appropriate for staff to work more than their contracted hours unless absolutely necessary."