Trust apologises for redundancy blunder

Rochdale Infirmary

The Pennine Acute Hospital Trust has apologised to 240 radiology staff after a junior manager wrongly told them their jobs were at risk.

The manager at Pennine Acute Trust, which runs the Rochdale Infirmary, the Royal Oldham Hospital, Fairfield Hospital and North Manchester General Hospital told staff that at least a quarter of them would be made redundant.

The trust, which has to save £45m over the next year, said the circumstances of the meetings are now being investigated.

A spokesman for The Pennine Acute Trust said: "We understand a manager within the radiology department has held a series of meetings with staff about efficiency savings and staffing levels without authorisation from their Divisional director. The circumstances of these meetings are now being investigated.

"We are obviously very disappointed and regret this has happened, and most importantly, we wish to apologise to the staff who attended these meetings for the anxiety and upset this has caused. There is no truth in the statement that staff will have to reapply for their own jobs on an annual basis. No proposals for disinvestment or job reductions in our Radiology services have been received or formally considered.

The spokesman added: “As reported at the Trust Board last week and in a number of local press, it is common knowledge that like all NHS Trusts, we will have to make significant cost savings in 2011/12, in our case this is around £45m from our total budget of £580m. This will mean looking at a range of measures to reduce costs and get the best value for money whilst continuing to provide safe clinical services.

“We have never had to resort to compulsory redundancies in the past and we do not see any reason why we would need to resort to such a measure now. We will set out to manage any reduction in posts that may be necessary by redeploying staff into existing vacancies or where we are incurring costs for temporary staff or overtime. We have a reasonable level of natural turnover of staff in any one year and that will mean that we can absorb displaced staff into those posts."