Hospital boss says 400 job losses 'halfway' to total

The chief executive of University Hospital Southampton has said the organisation is "halfway through" its planned job losses.

The trust has to make £110m worth of savings and previously announced it needed to lose around 780 full time positions to balance the books by the spring.

At that time it said 620 permanent staff members and 165 temporary employees would see their positions close.

CEO David French told the BBC the job reductions made to date "have been done through natural wastage".

The trust employs about 13,000 people, with many based at Southampton General Hospital.

Mr French said: "There's been no big redundancy pot, so as people have left we've challenged ourselves to say 'must we replace that person, or can we live without that person by working in a different way?'"

The positions lost so far have been about two thirds temporary staff, one third substantive.

The closure of two wards has resulted in the loss of positions in nursing, but the trust said it had maintained the number of nurses per ward.

Describing the process as "difficult and painful", the trust said it had also lost about 10% of its corporate back office staff.

The Managed Care Infusion Service is among those affected by a recruitment freeze.

It has found new ways of working to manage the same number of patients on less staff.

At Victoria House staff treat on average 600 patients a month and the number continues to rise.

Sister Lucy Elkins said: "We're still managing to give the same high quality care that we were giving before, just on less staff."

The hospital said it was doing 30% more work than before the Covid pandemic, but has also had to save money.

The Romsey Phlebotomy service is closing, meaning patients in future will have to travel the Royal South Hampshire site.

The need to make saving came about after a financial settlement with the government that was lower than anticipated.

The trust also recently announced it was unable to run extra unfunded clinics, such as in the case of Lillia Jakeman

She has been denied access to the drug Tofersen, which it is hoped could limit the progression of her rare form of MND.

Among the impacts on staff are increased car parking charges and the removal of subsidies for those travelling by bus.

"We're going to continue on this trajectory until the end of the year," Mr French said.

He said at that point the trust would have a better idea of what its expenditure and the demand on its services would be, as well as what funding would be available.

"At the end of the year we'll take stock about whether we change direction, continue, or somewhere in between the two," he added.

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