Campaigners launch protest against proposed NHS cuts

Campaigners will launch a protest against proposed NHS budget cuts next week - which have left hundreds of hospital workers facing the axe.

It was announced last week that North West London Hospital Trust, which runs Northwick Park and St Mark's Hospitals in Harrow, as well as Central Middlesex Hospital in Park Royal, will have it's annual budget slashed by as much as £32million.

Protesters are concerned the 10 per cent cut will be too great a burden on hospitals like Northwick Park and are worried sacking staff will put lives at risk.

Spokeswoman for action group Campaign to Defend Brent Healthcare Services Sarah Cox hopes thousands will come out to voice their concerns, when they protest on Valentine's Day at Central Middlesex Hospital.

She said: "The cuts being proposed are a massive worry to everyone. If redundancies are made to frontline staff or adequate training can no longer be afforded to all workers then standards will obviously slip.

"Standards of care are barely reaching acceptable levels as it is and hospitals like Northwick Park have hardly had the best publicity in recent times.

"Taking away invaluable funds won't help the current situation."

Although it is not clear how many of the 4,200 strong workforce will be axed at this stage, trust boss Fiona Wise said: "As pay accounts for a large proportion of costs we will be looking at making some changes to our workforce."

The chief executive's own salary is £160,000 a year.

She added: "We will be reassuring staff there are ways in which this can be done without making large-scale redundancies, such as through natural turnover, redeployment, flexible retirement, voluntary reduction in hours, controlling expenditure of temporary staff, flexible working and reducing sickness.

"We cannot rule out reductions in the number of posts but specific details (where and how many) have not been decided as yet.

"Any redundancies would be considerably less than 400, it will always be a last resort."

Branch secretary of Unison, the largest union for hospital workers, Peter Nzekwe, said: "To be honest, the news came as a massive shock to me.

"Everybody is nervous about their futures but at the moment we just have to wait and see what happens."

Members of Unison and Campaign to defend Brent healthcare services will stage their protest from 12 noon at Central Middlesex Hospital on February 14.