Northants ICB staff fear job losses amid NHS cost-cutting drive
Hundreds of NHS staff are facing uncertainty over their jobs after cuts to local health services begin to take shape.The Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board (ICB), which oversees the running of health services in the county, was told in April it must cut its running costs by almost a third before the end of the year.A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said the government was committed to "cutting back on unnecessary bureaucracy" and "reinvesting savings in frontline care".Northamptonshire ICB has declined to comment.
According to a headcount taken in March 2025, there were just over 200 staff at the Northamptonshire ICB and around 330 in Leicestershire and Rutland ICB. A total of £16.7m in savings need to be made from the areas' combined £53m running costs.In response, Northamptonshire ICB and Leicestershire and Rutland ICB have proposed clustering together, to maintain services while reducing expenditure. However, despite the plan, hundreds of job losses are expected. Toby Sanders, chief executive of Northamptonshire ICB, said staff were "frankly terrified" about their financial futures.
'Causing chaos'
Managers in Partnership (MiP), the NHS managers union, warned the cuts will damage local economies and hinder the ability to retain skilled workers.MiP chief executive Jon Restell said: "The government's massive gamble to cut half of the ICB workforce was taken without any plan or assessment of what new structures need to do. "Three months on from that decision there is still no sign of the Ten Year Health Plan and still no national mechanism to make staff redundant."The speed of the cuts, to be made by the end of the year, is causing chaos."According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, it was confirmed at a recent Integrated Care Partnership meeting that formal proposals to create a Leicester, Northamptonshire, Rutland ICB cluster were submitted to NHS England in May. If approved, it would not be a full merger, but would introduce shared management and functions.
Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Gray missing in action as Scotland records its worst cancer waiting times on record
Neil Gray was declared 'missing in action' yesterday after it emerged he is on a 'junket' in Japan as Scotland records its worst cancer waiting times on record. The beleaguered SNP health secretary has been accused of letting the NHS 'spiral out of control' as delayed discharges also hit a new high. The 'appalling' figures emerged as doctors warned the health service was 'dying' as Scots increasingly raided savings to go private to avoid huge waiting lists. The Scottish Conservative Party 's health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: 'These appalling statistics confirm Scotland is facing a ticking timebomb when it comes to cancer cases on the SNP's watch. 'Yet while cancer waiting times hit record lows and delayed discharge rates spiral out of control, Neil Gray is on a junket abroad. 'In the words of BMA Scotland, our NHS is 'dying before our eyes', but the SNP health secretary is missing in action. 'Neil Gray should be focused on fixing our health service, not globetrotting. 'While this delegation may be helpful for the industry, Neil Gray's presence looks like a jolly. 'He needs to show common sense and adopt our plans to cut bureaucracy and surge resources to the frontline.' The row exploded as a raft of official figures underlined the crisis in Scotland's NHS: * Nearly a third of Scots referred with an urgent suspicion of cancer still hadn't started their treatment by the 62-day target in the first quarter of 2025. * The number of delayed discharge patients stuck in hospital hit a record 720,000 last year, with one NHS bed in nine occupied by someone who didn't need it. * Waiting times in A&E worsened last week, with just two-thirds of patients seen on time, and 11 per cent waiting more than eight hours. * Dr Iain Kennedy, chair of BMA Scotland, accused the SNP of 'repeatedly ignoring' warnings about NHS lists, forcing patients to 'use their own hard-earned money' instead of 'languishing' in a health service 'dying before our very eyes'. There was particular anger at Holyrood over the cancer waits - and Mr Gray's absence on a Scottish healthcare 'trade mission' half-way around the world. A key NHS Scotland's standard means 95 per cent of patients should wait no longer than 62 days from an urgent suspicion of cancer referral until their first cancer treatment. But only 68.9 per cent of patients referred from January to March started treatment on time, down from 73.5 per cent the previous quarter and 70.5 per cent for the same period in 2024. Only one of Scotland's 14 regional health boards, NHS Lanarkshire, hit the target. It was the worst performance since comparable records began in 2012. A target for 95 per cent of patients to start treatment within 31 days of a new cancer diagnosis was also missed, with 94.1 per cent treated on time. Dr Sorcha Hume, of Cancer Research UK, said: 'It's unacceptable that people are waiting too long for cancer treatment - and the situation is getting worse, not improving. 'Given the rise in the number of people being diagnosed with cancer, the Scottish Government must take urgent action. We need to see a significant increase in investment in the workforce. Reforms to NHS infrastructure and services are also required.' Mr Gray was last year criticised for going on 'jollies' to Aberdeen FC games in his official limo and had to apologise to parliament for looking 'more of a fan' than a minister. This week the Airdrie & Shotts MSP is on a trip selling Scotland's 'strong international reputation for pioneering health technologies' in Japan. But it emerged yesterday that the SNP's ill-fated NHS app, which is already a decade behind England's, has been scaled back to a single function in a single health board. Hailed as a 'digital front door' to the health service by John Swinney, it will initially deal only with dermatology appointments in NHS Lanarkshire when launched. The cancer and delayed discharge figures are published at the same time each year. The Scottish Government confirmed Mr Gray would have known the timetable, but denied he knew the content, when he agreed to be overseas when they came out. The Health Secretary arrived in Japan on Sunday evening and met the trade mission's delegation at the British Embassy in Tokyo on Monday morning. He is also due at Expo 2025 in Osaka this week. He is not expected back in the UK until Friday, the day after MSPs leave Holyrood for the summer recess, letting him duck questions in the chamber about his record. Mr Gray also went on a five-day round trip to Japan in 2023 when he was Economy Secretary, when his flights and hotels cost taxpayers £7,000. Scottish Labour deputy leader Dame Jackie Baillie said: 'It is right that we engage with other nations when it comes to promoting Scotland and strengthening ties. 'However, many will question the timing of this visit by the Health Secretary when our NHS is in such a poor state after years of chronic mismanagement by SNP ministers. 'After making use of a ministerial limo to football matches, it would be wise of Neil Gray to make this trip a more productive one than his previous jaunts. 'And perhaps while he is abroad boasting about Scotland's reputation for pioneering technology, he could tell us when the long-delayed Scottish NHS app will finally launch.' Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton added: 'A cancer time-bomb is looming. The SNP must act now to cut these dangerously long waits and deliver urgent, life-saving care. 'Nothing Neil Gray has done since being appointed health secretary has turned the tide for stressed out staff and patients. 'It's all well and good for Scotland to be advertising its excellent health technology abroad but patients facing the worst ever waits for cancer treatment and delayed discharge might well wish the Health Secretary were at home working out how to drive down waiting lists.' Mr Gray said: 'We are treating more patients with cancer on time, within both standards, compared to the same quarter six years ago - 7.7 per cent more within the 31-day standard and 0.1 per cent more within the 62-day standard. 'Cancer remains a national priority for the Scottish Government. We have directed £14.23 million of the £106 million in additional planned care funding for 2025/26 to cancer waiting times, with a focus on colorectal, urological and breast as our most challenged pathways.' A Scottish Government spokeswoman added: 'While in Japan Mr Gray is taking forward a full schedule of engagements promoting Scotland's health technology sector. This includes a meeting with the Japanese Ministry of Health to discuss the shared challenges of caring for a growing ageing population and explore potential areas for collaboration. 'International engagement like this is vital to supporting innovation, attracting investment, and delivering long-term benefits for patients and our health service.'
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
DR SANDESH GULHANE: Minister is nowhere to be seen as Scots NHS is let down
During the SNP 's time in office, Scots have been hammered with the highest taxes in the UK but have been getting worse public services in return. Nowhere has this decline been more obvious than in our NHS and yesterday we had some of the most shameful and appalling figures yet seen. The worst delayed discharge figures on record and cancer statistics showing that almost a third of Scots are waiting longer than the 62-day target for treatment. Meanwhile, Health Secretary Neil Gray was in Japan 'showcasing Scotland's strengths in digital health and life sciences'. Whatever our achievements in those fields, it hardly disguises the fact that, at the most basic tasks we expect from a health service, the SNP is letting Scotland down, and the cabinet secretary isn't here to face the music. Despite being on their fifth NHS recovery plan in the past four years, the Nats are not only failing to repair the damage their policies have inflicted on the NHS. They're making matters worse. A&E waits remain high – despite it being summer, traditionally one of the quietest periods. The SNP have not met their own waiting time targets on cancer for over a decade. And it's been a decade since Shona Robison, the then health secretary, vowed to eradicate delayed discharge. Instead, the situation is worse than ever. Almost three-quarters of a million days were lost to bed-blocking – every one of them a waste of NHS resources, a source of despair to the patient stuck in hospital and a lost opportunity to treat someone else languishing on a waiting list. The equivalent of one in every six Scots is on a waiting list. As Dr Iain Kennedy, chairman of BMA Scotland, said yesterday – Scotland's NHS is 'dying before our eyes'. He pointed out that almost a third of Scots say they or someone in their household has been forced to pay to go private due to the difficulty in securing NHS treatment. The record waiting lists – with more than 63,000 people waiting over a year and, shockingly, 5,200 having waited for two years or more – are 34 per cent worse than this time last year. That is an utterly damning figure. The SNP have never once met their target that no one should wait over 12 weeks for in-care or daycare treatment – despite having passed a law making it a legal obligation. These aren't just abysmal statistics. They represent people left without timely treatment, suffering unnecessary pain, whose chances of recovery and, in the most extreme cases, survival, are being put at risk by the inability of successive SNP ministers to get a grip on this crisis. I know from my colleagues that it is also pushing dedicated NHS staff to breaking point. The SNP made the disastrous decision to cut the number of medical students by 8 per cent, nursing students by 20 per cent and trainee midwives by 40 per cent. There's a dangerous shortage of oncologists and radiologists. There are more than 450,000 extra patients registered with GP practices since 2012, but the government has little chance of meeting their target of 800 new GPs by 2027. Audit Scotland identified a 6 per cent cut in real-terms spending on GPs between 2021 and 2024. Wasteful public spending is going through the roof, yet frontline care is being starved of resources. The SNP now spends more money on the best-paid public sector fat cats than it does on paramedics. They've squandered millions on an app that should have been up and running years ago and which – if it arrives – will be inferior to the one the rest of the UK has had for a decade. Almost a million pounds a month is still being spent on preparations for a botched National Care Service, even though the SNP have abandoned most of their plans for it. The SNP cannot avoid the responsibility for this litany of failure. Over almost two decades, they have presided over a shameful decline in our health service. A string of inept ministers, each more dismal than the last, has acknowledged the system is in crisis. They've launched a series of recovery plans that have failed to produce any improvement. Patients are suffering needlessly. Staff are being pushed beyond endurance. What Scotland urgently needs now is a plan of action to repair the damage they have created, not perfunctory apologies and ever-worsening figures.
Daily Record
3 hours ago
- Daily Record
Specsavers Wishaw store to offer full time independent prescription service
This qualification allows the store to now manage more complex eye conditions without the need to refer as many patients to hospital. The newly refurbished Specsavers store in Wishaw is now qualified to offer a full time Independent Prescription service, helping to reduce pressures on local GP services. The store, located on Main Street, has announced that store partner Erin Riddell and optometrist Daniel Ruddy are now fully qualified Independent Prescribers, allowing them to write prescriptions for customers with conditions which can make eyes sore, red or dry such as allergies, infections or recurring issues. This qualification allows the store to now manage more complex eye conditions without the need to refer as many patients to hospital. Erin and Daniel can issue customers with NHS prescriptions for the medications they need to manage any eye ailments, and customers can then take this straight to a pharmacy to be dispensed, without having to visit their GP. The service will work on a triage basis, meaning patients will be assessed to determine the urgency of their need for treatment. The training for the service was a university led course, consisting of three separate modules and included 12 days training directly in a hospital. After passing the final exam and receiving the qualification, store partner Erin said: 'I am absolutely thrilled that we can offer such a valuable service to the community. 'Our store is in a unique position to help meet the needs of people with eye conditions without them having to visit their GP or the hospital. 'It will primarily save people time as customers won't need to find other routes to access the specialist care, and we can address the underlying issues as quickly as possible.' To book an appointment or speak to a member of the team at Specsavers Wishaw, visit or call 01698 354260.
