£40m budget cut on cards for Dudley hospitals trust

A Black Country hospital trust needs to make savings of £40million by 2014, it was revealed today.

Bosses have already been forced to claw back £10m of this year's budget for the Russells Hall and Guest Hospitals in Dudley and the Corbett Hospital in Stourbridge.

They are now expecting to have to repeat the cost-saving exercise for the next three years due to Government cuts.

The trust has ruled out any "immediate" redundancies but say they will continue to review vacancies as they arise to determine if the posts are still required.

Chief executive of the Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Paula Clark said: "Nationally there is a requirement to deliver savings of £15-20 billion in the NHS over the next three to four years. This translates to a saving of approximately four per cent — £10m."

She added savings would be made by reducing the amount of time patients spend in hospital when they have an operation and also reviewing contracts for equipment and clinical supplies.

Ms Clark said: "We are identifying and reviewing areas where spending could be reduced.

"These include a general review of budgets, procurement savings, for example retendering for equipment and clinical supplies, working more efficiently to reduce unnecessary time spent in hospital and reducing the number of patients who do not attend their appointments.

"We are looking at altering our processes so that patients can come into hospital on the day of their surgery rather than the day before."

In August it was revealed that NHS Dudley would need to cut back by around 12 per cent — or £42m — including possible redundancies in management and support roles, working with councils, and having GPs perform minor operations by April 2014.

Last year, the coalition Government announced that £4.35bn would have to be cut from the NHS budget over the next three years.

Unison regional representative Tracy Wood said: "We are monitoring the situation across the West Midlands. The Government promised these cuts would not impact on frontline services and we will be making sure that doesn't happen. I think the Dudley Group of Hospitals is faring much better than other hospital trusts in the region."