Concern about nursing job cuts

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Any thoughts or comments? BBC NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | Concern over nursing job losses


Proposals to cut 722 nursing jobs across Northern Ireland are deeply concerning, the Royal College of Nurses has said.

The posts are under threat as part of wider plans to cut almost 2,500 health service jobs over the next three years.

The director of the Royal College of Nursing, Mary Hinds, said more nurses, not fewer, were needed.

But Health Minister Michael McGimpsey said he has to make 3% efficiency savings over the next three years.

Ms Hinds said losing frontline service staff would mean that patients would suffer as a result.

"You can't get much more frontline than a nurse and we're gravely concerned about that impact on patient care," she said.

"Nurses want to give good care to patients and we are concerned that the loss of these posts will have a detrimental effect on care."

Since October last year, when all Executive departments were told to make efficiency savings of up to 3% over the next three years, health trusts have been working out how best they can save money.

It is proposed several hundred nursing jobs could go.

Mr McGimpsey said: "This is a matter for the Executive and the Executive is saying that, and it is a Treasury guideline, we must make 3% efficiencies over the next three years.

"For me, with the biggest department, that means that I have to find £700m in efficiencies over the next three years.

"But through negotiation, all of that money, every single penny that comes out in efficiencies, will all go back in - it's all ring-fenced for health."
On Tuesday, the assembly's health committee is to debate the Department of Health's proposals.


The committee is calling for the budgets for the most vulnerable groups, including children and people with mental illness, to be protected.

DUP MLA Iris Robinson, chairwoman of the Assembly's health committee, said more nurses were needed, not fewer.

She said the health minister had previously told the committee that frontline nursing staff would not be affected in the projected job losses.

The SDLP's Carmel Hanna said: "The most important thing to do this week is to establish the principle that frontline care provision for the most vulnerable in our society must be inviolable."

Kieran McCarthy, Alliance Party, said news of the proposed cuts was "deeply worrying" .

"Nurses carry out massively important work and our health system would face great difficulty were it to lose these staff," he said.

"There should be no damaging cuts to vital frontline services."

Michele O'Neill, Sinn Féin, said her party would fight any attempt to cut frontline jobs.

"These are jobs that are essential to the function of a full and effective health service without which patient care will inevitably suffer.

"I think if you talk to any nurse they will very clearly tell you that both themselves and their colleagues are stretched. To lose 700 nurses is wholly unacceptable," she said.