Healthcare bosses in the North East have warned that job losses are likely after management level cuts were announced.
Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) have been ordered by NHS England to reduce costs significantly by the end of the year. ICBs are responsible for planning local NHS services, and replaced clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in 2022.
Speaking at Friday’s meeting of Gateshead Council’s Health and Wellbeing Board, Lynn Wilson, director of delivery at North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board, said the ICB would need to cut costs by 32% per head.
She said: “We need to see a cost reduction to £18.76 per head of the population, which is quite dramatic for staff less than a year after the last major reorganisation. We are currently at £27.69 a head so we need a reduction of 32%.
“Earlier in May we got the blueprint for ICBs and it told us what we needed to do in the coming months; what the operating model may look like; what we might need to do more of and what might be transferred to other organisations. The core function is population health management.”
Ms Wilson explained that the level of money that needed to be saved put over 330 jobs at risk.
Dr Mark Dornan, the board’s chief clinical information officer, added: “The point is the NHS is not meeting the needs of the public. The national political message is how do we get more money spent on the front line and less on management.
“Until we get the NHS ten-year plan, we’re a little bit unclear on how this will all work. We haven’t seen the big picture on what the jigsaw will look like.”
The meeting’s chairman, Coun Lynne Caffrey, warned the ICB did important work in the borough and any gaps would need to be filled.
She said: “It is really important that we’re all on top of things that will affect us. At the moment in Gateshead, we have ICB staff on the ground doing important development work.
“We think there is not going to be any of that going forward and we think we’re going to lose that. We all need to work together to make sure we don’t lose what we feel is valuable in Gateshead.”
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