NHS gets green light for thousands of redundancies

Thousands of NHS staff redundancies in England will now take place after a deal was struck with the Treasury to allow the health service to overspend this year to cover the cost of redundancies.

The government said last year that 18,000 administrative and management jobs would go to NHS England, the body that runs the NHS, and would move to the Department of Health and Social Care along with cuts to local health boards.

NHS bosses and health ministers had been in talks with the Treasury about how to pay the one-off £1bn bill, as the health service wanted extra money.

The Treasury blocked that, but the BBC understands a compromise has been reached and the NHS is allowed to overspend this year.

As job cuts deliver savings in future years, the NHS is expected to recover costs in the future.

Overall, government sources said no additional money will go to the NHS beyond what was agreed in this year’s spending review: an extra £29bn a year above inflation by 2028-29.

In a speech to health managers at the NHS provider conference in Manchester on Wednesday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting is expected to say: “I want to reassure taxpayers that every penny they are asked to pay will be spent wisely.

“We are now stepping on the accelerator and cutting unnecessary bureaucracy to reinvest savings in frontline care.

“It won’t happen overnight, but with our investment and modernisation, we will rebuild our NHS so it is available when you need it again.”

According to the government, the reforms will raise £1bn a year by the end of parliament to improve services for patients.

It said every £1 billion saved in bureaucratic costs is enough to fund an additional 116,000 hip and knee operations.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to make further announcements on the health service in the Budget on November 26.

NHS England is expected to return to the Department of Health within two years, while cuts to integrated care boards (ICBs), which plan health services for individual regions, will reduce their workforce by 50%.

NHS Providers chief executive Daniel Elkeles said: “This is a pragmatic step which means planned redundancies can now go ahead.

“It reflects the flexibility of a three-year agreement, which allows some funds to be brought forward to generate future savings to dedicate to frontline care.

“However, we must recognize the position of staff affected by these changes, people who have offered commitment and service to the NHS, who face a very uncertain future.”

But Patricia Marquis, of the Royal College of Nursing, warned that redundancies could backfire.

“Frontline services need more investment, but doing this at the cost of laying off thousands of experts is a false economy.

“Expert registered nurses working across NHS England and ICBs not only run vital public health programs and oversee care programs for the vulnerable, they connect NHS and social care services together.

“To imply that these are administrators shows a complete lack of understanding of their roles and how they contribute to patient care.”