Friday, May 14, 2010

Nicola Sturgeon needs to ensure that NHS Glasgow and Clyde jobs cuts don’t result in poorer services; this is one issue to be watched very closely













Dear All

The cuts are coming, the cuts are coming!

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC) are proposing over the next 18 months to end more than 1,200 posts.

These posts will be in frontline nursing and midwifery services.

But nothing is being said about the top heavy management structures of Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Management must be scaled back in order to ensure as much of the front line services are protected as possible.

Norman Provan, of the Royal College of Nursing, said;

“It is simply not possible to cut this number of nursing and other posts without affecting the quality of patient care and patient safety. We have been warning for some time that Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board’s plans are reckless and put short-term financial considerations ahead of patient need.”

This presents a challenge to the SNP Government who need to tackle Quangoland.

By put this off and not tackling it, they have allowed something to fester.

The review of jobs shouldn't just end at the hospital gates, as university education needs to be scaled back.

Or we will have a situation were people are being trained for jobs that don’t exist.

Margaret Watt, chair of the Scotland Patients Association takes my view about staffing, she said;

“We are top-heavy in administration and we have more administration staff than we need. It is high time we looked at the heavy load we have got in administration.”

It is a tricky task the SNP Government faces, perhaps the biggest challenge since taking over the health portfolio in 2007.

NHS Glasgow and Clyde has said that due to staff turn over of 3,000 a year, these posts being lost would be absorbed into that figure so no one is facing compulsory redundancies.

So, the question will be does the redesign of health services on fewer sites provide the same high-quality care for our patients with fewer staff.

This is something a SNP Government working group should evaluate when the services redesign is up and running.

Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said;

“All health boards have been asked to provide workforce plans, which will enable the Government and health boards to assess the current workforce and skills mix and ensure this is appropriate to meet current and future needs. We are currently scrutinising these plans and they will be published in due course.”

The SNP isn’t saying these plans are fixed in stone but they will look very closely at the details from all sides of the equation, NHS Glasgow and Clyde, the unions and patients.

Then reach a sensible decision.

As well as this they should look further afield to other countries and their delivery systems in case they are missing a trick.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

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