EXCLUSIVE: Hospitals in crisis will slash beds and hundreds of jobs

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Health bosses were forced to admit for the first time yesterday that hundreds of jobs will be axed and bed numbers will be slashed by 40 per cent at their Slough and Ascot hospitals.

The scale of the crisis facing Wexham Park Hospital and Heatherwood Hospital was revealed after the Express obtained a copy of a secret ‘Turnaround Plan’.

The January document, written by executive chairman Chris Langley and chief executive Julie Burgess, stated that at least 700 of the trust’s 3,899 workforce will be axed by April 2013 and from July 1 this year, a process to cut 238 beds would begin.

It states that the Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will implode with a deficit of £48 million after three years if savings are not found quickly.

When the Express put this to the trust this week, Mr Langley said that 470 jobs will be cut from the payroll and the threatened bed cuts will now be delayed ‘until services are running efficiently’.

He said the trust would attempt to avoid compulsory redundancies and that many employees will face redeployment.

Worried union leaders said this week that wards will be closed and 150 nursing jobs will eventually disappear through 'natural wastage'.

Agency workers will also be axed and the job cuts will hit mainly manual, clerical and managerial roles.

A consultation period of 90 days started yesterday with the staff side including UNITE, GMB, UNISON, and RCN representatives.

Senior medics are demanding a probe into finances by the Audit Commission.

Read the full story in today’s Express.