200 jobs set to be slashed at Dorset hospital (From Bournemouth Echo)

200 jobs set to be slashed at Dorset hospital

11:00am Thursday 5th November 2009

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AROUND 200 jobs will be axed at Dorset County Hospital in the next 12 months.

The shock announcement was due to be made to staff today as they turned up for emergency meetings with bosses.

Derek Smith answered a series of questions put by our sister paper the Dorset Echo.

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It comes after months of turmoil as the hospital board battled to control the spiralling £7.5 million debt.

The hospital’s interim chief executive, Derek Smith, said the cuts were vital for the hospital’s survival.

He said that staff must prepare for “tough but necessary” measures in the next year including staff cuts, changes in services and a possible pay freeze.

He said: “We have some very acute financial difficulties at the moment.

“But if they became chronic the effect would be to corrode that high quality of service and to undermine the morale and commitment of the staff that work here, and none of us can afford that to happen.”

He said the high level of debt was caused by the hospital board employing too many workers over the past three years without having the budget.

He and other board directors will tell staff today that 30 to 40 job cuts will be made in the next few months and then 150 to 160 more during 2010. The job losses will be across the board, from frontline nurses to management and administrative staff.

The board are also in discussion with the unions about asking staff to take a pay freeze in the new year. The executive board estimates the savings will be between £8 million and £12 million a year hopes to be breaking even by March 2011.

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