Job cuts drive at Blackpool Victoria Hospital but most applications are being declined

Some 56 applications had been received by the time the original four-week window closed earlier this year, but 40 were refused “for various reasons”

Reception at Blackpool Victoria Hospital

First published on 22 August 2024

Jobs are being cut at the cash-strapped NHS trust running Blackpool Victoria Hospital - although most people hoping to be paid off have so far been rejected.

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust launched a ‘mutually agreed resignation scheme’ (Mars) - which it insists is different to a redundancy programme - in March.

Some 56 applications had been received by the time the four-week window closed on April 14, but 40 were refused “for various reasons”, documents obtained by The Blackpool Lead show.

Due to a “lower-than-expected take up of the scheme”, launched to save about £714,600 as the trust works to balance its books, a second round has been launched and will close to applications on September 30.

The trust’s executive director of people and culture, Katy Coope, said she hopes “local people will recognise that the trust remains firmly and consistently focused on making improvements that matter to patients and families”.

She said: “As part of this process, our aim is to reduce our costs as we seek to deliver the very best care for the very best value that we can.

“This involves continuously reviewing the way we work to understand how services both in hospital and out in the community could be better and making changes to how we have done things before where we need to, including moving people and budgets around to invest or disinvest in services as appropriate.”

Coope continued: “This will including reducing the total number of people who work for the trust and balancing our budget similarly to other NHS and public sector organisations.”

The trust submitted a revised financial plan to NHS England, which runs the national health service, on June 12 and now plans to end the year £21.9m in the red.

That’s down from a deficit of £24.3m, hospital papers suggest.

The Blackpool Lead asked the trust a number of questions, including how many applications for the Mars scheme it originally hoped for, how many employees were allowed to apply for it, and the job titles of those both accepted and refused. It also asked how many applications the trust has had so far during the second round of job cuts.

Those questions went unanswered.

But documents reveal that the scheme was launched for “staff who did not deliver clinical duties to patients and service users for the majority of their role”.

Non-clinical roles include those in finance and HR, as well as admin staff, secretaries and assistants.

Those knocked back after applying were “rejected for various reasons, including (that their) posts could not be disestablished and the post holder delivered clinical activity (for) the majority of their role” - suggesting that some important medics may have applied.

Several applications were also withdrawn.

Coope said in a statement: “The mutually agreed resignation scheme is just one approach that we’re using to help us to make changes whilst also carefully considering the impact on colleagues, some of whom have been with us for very long periods of time.

“It’s different to redundancy in that it’s open to non-clinical colleagues who can volunteer to leave for whatever personal reason they may have.

“It may be we can’t agree and there are criteria in place to make sure these decisions are fair, but applications are approved for colleagues in roles that we feel can be removed or reconfigured to ‘right size’ the organisation generally.

“The cost is also significantly less for those who opt to leave our organisation under Mars compared to making someone redundant.”

She added: “It’s important to say that everyone in the trust remains fully committed to providing safe, high quality care for our patients as we seek to make improvements, reduce costs and deliver the best healthcare possible for Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre.”

NHS guidance describes Mars as a “form of voluntary severance” designed with the aim of “increasing the flexibility to organisations as they address periods of change and service redesign”.

It says: “Its key purpose is to create job vacancies which can be filled by redeployment of staff from other jobs or as a suitable alternative to staff facing redundancy and in doing so to minimise the need for any future redundancies…”

Nobody can leave under the scheme if it “potentially puts the trust at any risk” or where “delivery of service would be put at risk by their departure”, the guidance adds.

Those in “hard to recruit to posts” are also barred from applying.

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals is not the first trust to launch such a scheme in recent months, with several others doing so.

Last month, Blog Preston revealed how staff at the trust running Preston and Chorley’s hospitals had offered to pay staff to quit as part of efforts to save £58m by the end of 2024/25.

The Mars scheme comes as the Vic’s maternity unit, which delivers around 3,000 babies a year and was rated ‘requires improvement’ after its last inspection by the hospital watchdogs, struggles to recruit.
Hospital documents say the “challenges” faced by the unit “are recruitment and low levels of qualified staff available”.

They add: “There is currently a staffing review ongoing and that will likely advise that more staff are required, and the department is exploring different ways and streams of working.”

The papers, from a recent trust meeting, appear to blame its medics for wanting to work less hours, saying: “Another workforce challenge is generational, with younger members of staff striving for a different work-life balance and having different ambitions and financial limitations, which impacts availability, training and gained experience.”

Last week, The Blackpool Lead told how a heavily pregnant woman wasn’t examined properly before being inappropriately given a drug to help with contractions.