The NHS in Scotland is facing 4,000 job cuts as the SNP government plans a £270million cut in spending following a tight budget settlement earlier this year. And even further cuts are expected after the Westminster ConDem ‘emergency budget’ on 22 June with knock-on effects in Scotland over the next few years.
The Scottish Government has promised there will be no compulsory redundancies and have agreed a partnership group with the unions to scrutinise workforce plans, but that still leaves major concerns about and jobs and services.
“It is clear that we face deep cuts which will impact on our vital health services”, said Tam Waterson UNISON Scotland’s Health Committee Chair.
With health inflation higher than general inflation and an increase in demand for services, cuts will bite even deeper than the figures suggest.
The STUC in April called for urgent talks with the Scottish Government to address pressures on NHS funding and called for a fight to protect NHS jobs and services. That fight is all the more important now, with 1500 nursing and midwifery jobs among the front-line services that will be hit.
Last December, New Economics Foundation research showed that for £1 a hospital cleaner is paid, they create £10 of benefit to society; while City bankers, on salaries of between £500,000 and £10m a year, destroy £7 of social value for every £1 they generate.
And while unions, workers and the public are facing up to cuts in our most treasured and critical service, 100 investment bankers at Royal Bank of Scotland got bonuses of at least £1million each last year (MailOnline). Just last month in Edinburgh, Lloyds awarded their top guys £5million for delivering a £6.3billion loss! (FT)
And while front-line NHS workers face the dole or added work pressures to make up for the missing staff, two top ‘public servants’ in the state financed RBS resigned, reportedly because their huge bonuses were to be cut (Telegraph).
You couldn’t make it up, could you?
http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/news/2010/mayjune/0306.htm
John Stevenson
