Health board may cut 180 jobs to save money

It is believed between 40 and 60 of these management and administration jobs could be lost in Inverclyde.

The plans were revealed in evidence submitted to a group of MSPs investigating the beleaguered health board's £100 million deficit.

Neil Campbell, chief executive of the health board, confirmed 180 jobs could go, resulting in a saving of £4.5 million and said he would be working with the trade unions to make sure none of the redundancies was compulsory. He hoped most of the job losses would be brought about by voluntary retirement, retraining and voluntary reduction in hours.

Despite more money being given to the board by the goverment, health bosses are spending less on frontline services.

Documents given to the health board show their total income from government is set to rise from £379 million in 2000/1 to £554 million in 2005/6 - a rise of 46.3 per cent. And the amount of money available for day-to-day running of services is rising from £24 million in 2000/1 to a predicted £32.5 million by 2005/6.

But despite this the health board say the amount available to spend on `local issues` is declining from £10.3million in 2000/1 to just £400,000 in 2003/4. They predict a funding shortfall of £6.8 million next year.

Despite the downgrading of maternity services in Inverclyde, maternity spending is 29 per cent higher than the Scottish average.

Mr Campbell said: `We acknowledge the financial challenges facing the system and accept that in order to return to recurring financial balance our models of service delivery requires to be redesigned and our workforce numbers reduced.

`As part of the redesign of our workforce we will be restructuring the corporate management arrangements. This will enable us to streamline processes by removing duplication and simplifying organisational structures. This could lead to the reduction in 180 management and administrative posts resulting in a cost saving of £4.5 million.`