500 signatures reached
To: Jeremy Hunt
Stop job cuts at Health Education England
At a time of national crisis in the recruitment and training of doctors, the very staff responsible for this work across London and the South East face a 41% head count cut. Please protect Health Education England funding and prevent massive staff shortages threatening patient safety.
Why is this important?
Health Education England (HEE) is currently consulting on proposals which will see massive job losses among staff responsible for the recruitment and training of new doctors and dentists for London and the South East, while at the same time introducing new data systems and ways of working without trialling them first.
Currently 180 staff oversee the recruitment and training of thousands of junior doctors and dentists every year. Under the new plans, there will be just 111 staff to do the same work AND take on new business in two areas they have no experience of.
This is a 41% head count cut coming at the same time as a massively increased workload, proposed to be implemented by March 2017.
Furthermore, this is just the start – this cut is just in one region, but similar cuts are currently being planned in other HEE regions of the country.
We believe this represents a denigration of the service for trainee doctors and dentists, and as a consequence a real threat to the NHS and to patient safety. At a time when recruitment of doctors is already suffering due to the government’s health policies, the last thing we need is to undermine it further.
These cuts should be stopped completely until the new systems and working patterns have been tested so that informed proposals for safe staffing levels can be made.
According to Professor Allyson Pollock:
‘The Health and Social Care Act abolished the NHS and it is now being dismantled through budget cuts and services closures. There is no longer a duty on the Sec of State to provide key services throughout England and many areas will soon find they have decreased and limited access to NHS services and care as hospitals and services close and are sold off. Budgetary cuts are also decimating the organisations such as HEE which is responsible for recruiting and training staff including junior doctors. The destruction of the NHS is continuing apace and only legislation can stop it’.
