Britain’s biggest hospital trust has suspended one of its main critics as it prepares to axe a “significant” number of nurses to save cash.
Barts Health is to force 1,000 staff, from healthcare assistants to matrons, to compete for jobs as it reorganises nursing cover across its six hospitals.
Charlotte Monro, the long-serving Unison chairwoman at Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone, has been removed from a staff and management forum and threatened with disciplinary action for raising alarms about job losses.
She has also been accused of a conflict of interest after accepting an invitation to tell local councillors of her concerns about the downgrading of a stroke unit at Whipps Cross. Union colleagues have accused the trust of acting like a “kangaroo court” for targeting Ms Monro and have called on east Londoners to defend services at Whipps Cross and Newham, which they say are victims of the £7.1 billion PFI bill at Barts and the Royal London hospitals.
A 45-day consultation will establish who to retain following the merger of Barts and the London, Whipps Cross and Newham hospital trusts in April last year. About 400 of the nursing staff are involved in front-line care, with the remainder in managerial positions or support functions. The number of job losses has not been decided.
Ms Monro said senior nurses, ward managers and matrons were at risk. “They are the bedrock of providing care,” she said. “They are the people who stay for hours after work. They are the people who come in on their days off. One of the main objectives of the trust is to reduce the number of agency staff and have permanent staff. But they’re targeting the very people who can make it a place where people want to stay.”
John Lister, director of London Health Emergency campaign group, accused Barts of an “outrageous series of attacks” on health care. He said: “If you take away the [senior] nurses, how are you going to improve services? This is picking on Whipps Cross to fund a crisis built at Barts and the London.”
Barts has also appointed troubleshooter Donald Muir to work alongside accountants from PriceWaterhouseCoopers on its “financial turnaround” project to tackle a projected £50 million debt. Mr Muir was blamed by Rangers fans for being instrumental in the financial chaos that engulfed the club and saw it relegated to Scotland’s lowest league last year.
A Barts spokesman said the reduction in nursing was part of the integration of the six hospitals. It had not come from the “turnaround” hit-squad.
He added: “Some people will be rebranded. Some people will be found other appointments.”
