News / DH rejects savings plan

Health ministers have rejected proposals to cull almost 137,000 NHS jobs over the next five years in the drive to make savings of between £15bn and £20bn.

A leaked review for the Department of Health by consultancy McKinsey said that the cuts would need to be found in clinical as well as administrative roles.

The job cuts would include 30,000 non-clinical staff, by ensuring acute providers with above-average ratios of non-clinical to clinical staff moved nearer the average. This would save £600m.

According to the Health Service Journal, the report went on to recommend a recruitment freeze and an early retirement scheme for GPs and community nurses.

The consultancy says £8.8bn of recurrent spending could be cut by 2013/14, including up to £3bn in hospital productivity and £1.9bn in procurement. Freeing up and selling estates could release up to £8.3bn.

Health minister Mike O'Brien said the government had rejected the plans. ‘The government does not believe the right answer to improving the NHS now or in the future is to cut the workforce. In core frontline services like maternity, nursing and primary care we need more staff,’ he said.

The NHS Confederation said the McKinsey report was a ‘sober analysis’. Policy director Nigel Edwards (pictured above) rejected across-the-board cuts but savings could be made via natural wastage.

‘On average, 30,000 people a year retire and a large number leave the NHS,’ he said. ‘So it is possible to plan for a reduction in headcount without the need for massive redundancies.’