Health and safety jobs to be prioritised in health trust
Health and safety jobs to be prioritised in health trust
Individuals who perform health and safety jobs within organisations serve a vital purpose. Not only do they enable establishments to fulfil their legal obligations, but they also reduce the risks that exist in relation to people's wellbeing.
In recognition of this, a health trust has revealed it is trying to keep as many of those with health & safety jobs as possible when it makes a round of job cuts.
According to a report in the Leicester Mercury, a consultation is underway concerning reductions to the NHS workforce in Leicestershire. In total, around 260 workers may go as part of a move to shave 6 million from its expenses.
Some of the positions have already been lost and support is being provided to those who have been made jobless.
Commenting on the priorities of bosses, NHS official Catherine Griffiths said: "We are having to make cuts from across the spectrum, but certain areas such as clinical governance and health and safety have had high priority so we've really made sure that we've taken little or nothing out of them."
She added: "Any redundancies are always regrettable but we need to reduce our management costs so that we can help the NHS budget stretch further. That is really important as we face up to the inevitable financial challenges that lie ahead."
Other public sector organisations may also be planning to save as many health and safety jobs as possible when they come to make reductions to their workforces.
However, it is likely that some of those with health & safety jobs will lose their positions as a result of the austerity measures being implemented by the coalition government. The administration is making the cuts in a bid to reduce the fiscal deficit, much of which was accrued as a result of the banking bailouts seen during the credit crunch.