NHS staff fear job losses amid cost-cutting drive

Northamptonshire and Leicestershire and Rutland Integrated Care Boards are proposing to cluster together as part of plans to reduce costs

Hundreds of NHS staff are facing uncertainty over their jobs after cuts to local health services begin to take shape.

The Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board (ICB), which oversees the running of health services in the county, was told in April it must cut its running costs by almost a third before the end of the year.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said the government was committed to "cutting back on unnecessary bureaucracy" and "reinvesting savings in frontline care".

Northamptonshire ICB has declined to comment.

The Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board headquarters is located at Haylock House in Kettering

According to a headcount taken in March 2025, there were just over 200 staff at the Northamptonshire ICB and around 330 in Leicestershire and Rutland ICB.

A total of £16.7m in savings need to be made from the areas' combined £53m running costs.

In response, Northamptonshire ICB and Leicestershire and Rutland ICB have proposed clustering together, to maintain services while reducing expenditure.

However, despite the plan, hundreds of job losses are expected.

Toby Sanders, chief executive of Northamptonshire ICB, said staff were "frankly terrified" about their financial futures.

'Causing chaos'

Managers in Partnership (MiP), the NHS managers union, warned the cuts will damage local economies and hinder the ability to retain skilled workers.

MiP chief executive Jon Restell said: "The government's massive gamble to cut half of the ICB workforce was taken without any plan or assessment of what new structures need to do.

"Three months on from that decision there is still no sign of the Ten Year Health Plan and still no national mechanism to make staff redundant.

"The speed of the cuts, to be made by the end of the year, is causing chaos."

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, it was confirmed at a recent Integrated Care Partnership meeting that formal proposals to create a Leicester, Northamptonshire, Rutland ICB cluster were submitted to NHS England in May.

If approved, it would not be a full merger, but would introduce shared management and functions.