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UP to 300 nursing jobs are to go under plans announced yesterday by
one of Scotland's leading health trusts. The cuts were revealed in
Grampian Healthcare's three-year plan for 1995 to 1998, published
yesterday.
A trust spokesman said it was anticipated the jobs would go over the
next three years and there would be no need for compulsory redundancy.
He admitted nursing posts would be the hardest hit but said that
management and ancillary jobs would also be lost.
''The reduction is largely due to the community care scheme because we
are discharging patients into the community all the time, thereby doing
away with the need for nurses,'' said the spokesman.
He claimed there was evidence that the staff who lost their jobs would
pick up employment in the private sector, often looking after the same
people. ''We are optimistic that we can account for most of these
through natural wastage and voluntary redundancy,'' he said.
When the trust was established in 1993, it employed 6500 staff.
Yesterday's announcement will leave it with 4400 by 1988. A spokesman
for health union Unison said it would be discussing the matter at a
branch meeting in Aberdeen tonight.
Meanwhile, the trust is set to invest #15m in new services over the
next three years including a centre for non-emergency orthopaedics at
Aberdeen's Woodend Hospital. This had become necessary because of the
growing demand for hip and knee surgery. A new #1.5m outpatient clinic
will be opened at the hospital in March 1996.
The trust said it had worked closely with GPs and Grampian Health
Board in a bid to launch a pilot community health care centre in
Aberdeen.
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