Patients will suffer if NHS cuts jobs, workers say

Unite regional officer Richard Gates (third left) fears cuts to support staff will put more pressure on frontline staff, impacting patients

An NHS hospital worker who took part in a demonstration against planned job cuts has warned the cuts could lead to clinics being cancelled.

Up to 500 non-clinical roles at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge are at risk after the government told it to cut the cost of its support functions to 2022 levels.

Paul Robinson orders parts for "every vital piece of equipment" and said his job was "just as important as every other administrative role".

The hospital said it needed to take difficult but necessary decisions to continue to "meet the needs of our patients now and in the future".

The clinical engineering team where Paul Robinson works is responsible for making sure every piece of equipment in the hospital stays working, he said

The demonstration of Unite the Union members took place at the hospital during the workers' lunch break on Wednesday.

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), which runs Addenbrooke's, announced the proposed job losses at the end of March.

Posts in areas including finance, communication and administration are affected.

Mr Robinson, who works in the administrative section of the clinical engineering team, said it was his job to order spare parts for broken equipment.

"We're responsible for all the important stuff such as ventilators and heart monitors - everything that keeps you alive," he said.

"If there's a delay in getting things back into service, appointments could be cancelled, clinics could get cancelled."

Porters have a 15 minute window to get patients from the emergency department to the correct wards, said Paul Hardingham

Porter Paul Hardingham is a team leader in the "very busy" emergency department, responsible for getting patients to wards "in a timely manner".

"We are a vital role, without us you could add [wait] times on and that's not good enough for patients," he said.

"The patient has to wait long enough to see a doctor or nurse, we don't want to see them waiting for porters to get them settled into wards."

Unite regional officer Richard Gates said: "There's a real fear for those whose jobs are going, but also for those who are left and patients.

"If you haven't got the support staff, it's more demand on the frontline."

A CUH spokesperson said the proposed cuts amounted to about 4% of its total 13,000 workforce.

"We appreciate it is a worrying and uncertain time for many colleagues working in the NHS," they said.

"We are taking all possible steps to minimise redundancies, through natural turnover by not recruiting to posts when staff leave, holding vacancies empty and a mutually agreed resignation scheme."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "This government invested an extra £26 billion to fix the broken health and care system we inherited and make it fit for the future.

"We have underlined the need for trusts to cut bureaucracy to invest even further in the front line, so we can support hard-working staff and deliver a better service for patients and taxpayers' money."