No job losses due at local hospitals

Stafford and Cannock Chase Hospitals should not be hit by job losses being faced across the NHS.

The Royal College of Nursing has warned thousands of jobs across the county are at risk.

But Antony Sumara, chief executive of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, insisted that the hospital was to take on extra workers.

He said: "We have no plans to reduce staffing levels on our wards or elsewhere in our trust - in fact we are actively recruiting to fill a number of vacancies."

The trust has been re-building in the wake of the damning Healthcare Commission report released last year, which slammed standards of care at Stafford Hospital.

The trust has been criticised for being slow in recruiting more nurses after the Care Quality Commission made unnanounced visits to the hospital to see if improvements had been made.

The RCN says nationally almost 10,000 posts that have been lost through recruitment freezes, redundancies and people not replaced when they retire, or which face cuts in the future.

Ministers have told the NHS to find between £15billion and £20billion in efficiency savings by 2014 but Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has promised to protect frontline services.

Trusts have told the RCN job cuts will not affect frontline staff as long as they are willing to be "flexible."

The RCN is worried about the "insidious erosion" of staffing levels and has warned it could lead to a repeat of the problems that were faced by the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.

But Stafford Hospital is facing a cash shortfall, after ending the last financial year almost £5million in the red.

Bosses at the trust have a two-year plan to tackle the financial crisis by putting in strict controls.