Hospital Trust set to announce redundancies

Rochdale Infirmary

The Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust is set to announce a ‘huge’ number of redundancies, Rochdale Online understands.

The Trust, which runs the Rochdale Infirmary as well as hospitals in Oldham, Bury and North Manchester, is believed to be in talks with the Department of Health and the Department of Employment over the redundancies.

We understand that the Trust wants to start shedding jobs in this financial year.

The news comes after the Trust confirmed they needed to make a further £13million savings – bringing the total they need to achieve by April to approximately £56million.

In February 2011 the Trust announced they needed to make initial savings of £43million in this financial year and they said that up to 1,000 jobs would be lost.

It is feared the axe will fall on those working at Rochdale Infirmary after many services were removed from the hospital. Over the past 12 months the Infirmary’s A&E has been replaced with an Urgent Care Centre and inpatient children’s and maternity services have also been removed.

Locally there has been anger over the management of the Trust. This week the Leader of Rochdale Council, Councillor Colin Lambert called for the ‘removal’ of the Trust’s Chief Executive and Chairman.

Residents have also been left angered after the Trust spent almost £3million with management consultants Ernst and Young.