NHS Direct announces cutbacks consultation

NHS Direct has launched a three month consultation with staff on proposals that will cut around 1,000 existing jobs. Reasons for the cutbacks include lower volumes of calls than expected on the Choose and Book Appointments Line and a smaller volume of GP out-of-hours services than forecast.

A statement from the 24-hour health advice and information service explained: “We have a smaller share of GP Out of Hours services than we had expected and call volumes for the Choose and Book Appointments Line are growing but less than originally envisaged. The consequences of this are that we now need less capacity than we were forecasting 12 months ago."

On a more promising note, the statement continued: “In line with the recent White Paper, Our Heath, Our Care, Our Say, new opportunities are developing for NHS Direct to support patients with long-term conditions or to support hospitals in meeting outpatient targets but the scale of these is at present uncertain.”

NHS Direct also said that commissioning arrangements for its services had been changed and it faced significant competition for its enhanced services.

The proposals call for the closure of centres in Doncaster, Scunthorpe, York, Chester, Bolton, Preston, Chorley, Southport, Cambridge, Croydon, Brighton and Kensington in London. These centres will shut over the next 18 months and staff will be made redundant unless they can be redeployed. 18 call centres will be expanded.

“It is deeply worrying that a relatively new, flagship service is now making announcements about cuts, redundancies and closures,” said UNISON head of health Karen Jennings.

“With over 1,000 jobs at risk, in what is a recently set-up service, this will have ramifications on the rest of the NHS in terms of staff morale,” she warned.

Information and communications technology (ICT) services will also be reorganised as part of the shake-up. NHS Direct said that it was looking at four principal elements of its organisation: structures, sites, staff and standard working practices. As part of its review of structures, the service proposes to reorganise key support functions – finance, HR, ICT and communications – into zones serving nine newly-created regions.

NHS Direct argues that by bringing larger groups of staff together on a smaller number of sites, the service will be more cost-effective and able to make best use of staff skills.

It adds: “By moving towards larger sites we will improve clinical safety and ensure that our technology is used more efficiently.”