Hospital staff will be ‘horrified’ at cuts say union

Health / Mon 5th May 2025 at 09:17am

A UNION says staff at a hospital trust will be “absolutely horrified” by the announcement of more job cuts reports the BBC.

Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Southend and Basildon hospitals, and Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, plans to cut 743 whole-time equivalent posts before March 2026.

Tom Rhodes, Unison Eastern regional organiser, said: “Staff are already struggling after last year’s job losses.”

Matthew Hopkins, trust chief executive, said: “This is a continuation of our work to ensure we have the right staff in the right places to deliver the best patient care while spending taxpayers’ money responsibly.”

In board papers, the trust said it had planned to cut 600 posts last year but that was later reduced to 450.

The report said the current proposed deficit was “not sustainable” as about £118m of savings were required this year.

Mr Hopkins said: “The number of posts and roles across our organisation has grown by 2,000 in recent years, so we are reviewing staffing models and looking closely at roles to see whether they are genuinely needed and represent value for money.”

The trust has not confirmed what roles would be cut.

Mr Rhodes said: “Mid and South Essex hospitals are suffering cut after cut.”

He said staff were “going to be absolutely horrified”, adding: “The fact that the trust couldn’t hit its cuts target in 2024 shows there simply isn’t fat to trim, let alone more than 700 jobs.”

The trust has also set an £85m deficit plan for 2025-26.

4 Comments for Hospital staff will be ‘horrified’ at cuts say union:

Resident

2025-05-05 10:37:58

As long as these aren't front line jobs and is trimming back layers of unnecessary and expensive management and executive level roles.

Seamus

2025-05-05 11:18:23

Generally most who work in the NHS, know it is too top heavy with managers and not staffed enough with frontline staff. This situation means there is often an overlap of management but also allows all managers to blame each other when things go wrong. How often when it has gone wrong, have we heard" We are sorry for the situation but we have already started changes to make sure it won't happen again" but it inevitably does. When this does happen, those incompetent managers are either promoted sideways or allowed to go to another trust with no consequence, whilst year on year compensation payouts for errors increase.

David Forman

2025-05-05 17:30:23

These job cuts are likely to include front line staff. The key sentence in the article is: "The trust has not confirmed what roles would be cut." The Trust board would have been quick to say that front line nursing and caring jobs were not part of the cuts if that were the case. There is no common sense reason to be so vague, especially when challenged by their trade union representatives.