From the February issue of The Respect PaperHealth bosses sharpen the axeIn addition to London, six more of the ten Strategic Health Authorities in England have now mapped out plans for cuts totaling £15 billion over five years, according to documents on their websites and recent press revelations compiled by health campaigners Health Emergency.Just three SHAs (North East, Yorkshire and Humber and East of England) have yet to reveal the scale of their planned cuts, with some promising to publish plans in March.
However estimates based on their current share of NHS spending suggest that they would bring the total to around £20 billion - averaging almost £400 per head for every man, woman and child in England.
West Midlands faces cuts of £2.4 billion, averaging £450 per head, while most other regions are looking at cuts of between £290 and £400 per head. South Birmingham PCT has unveiled plans to axe health promotion programmes as part of a £24m cuts package.
The smallest proportional cuts appear to be in the East Midlands (£187 per head) but there the University Hospitals of Leicester Trust is already planning to axe 700 jobs to cut spending by £58m in the next year (£5m per month), and Derby's Hospital Trust is to cut £39m.
Other hospital cutbacks already under way include 400 jobs in Leeds, Slough's Wexham Park and Heatherwood Trust axing 150 jobs, and Portsmouth Hospitals slashing 230 jobs as they tackle mounting deficits.
NHS North West has argued for "World Class Decommissioning", and together with NHS South East Coast and NHS Yorkshire and Humberside are looking towards the 10% reduction in staffing proposed by last summer's controversial McKinsey report on the NHS which suggested 137,000 jobs should be axed, almost all of them in hospitals.
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