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I’ve been watching the headlines in local papers. It’s grim reading;
- East London FT recently had 800 employees apply for redundancy
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Up to 800 jobs are to go from Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight
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Norfolk and Norwich was inundated with 700 applications for redundancy
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Southampton are axing 780 positions…
If we take this as a back-of-a-fag packet indicator, we could say most Trusts (150ish) could shed ~750 people per Trust, to help balance their books.
The average exit package for NHS management/administrative staff in 2024 was about £48,840 per person…
... do the maths…
… I make the bill for the Treasury to be a tad under £5.5bn.
Add to that a 50% reduction in roles at NHSE, that would mean 7,500 posts and 12,500 in ICBs… that’s another 20,000 …
... do the maths…
… I make the total bill for the Treasury to be a tad over £6.5bn
... and …
… the lunatics in Whitehall want most of this done by Christmas... and if I'm half wrong, it's still a shed load of money.
This is redundancy by spreadsheet. There is no workforce plan, nor risk register for the impact. Just a mad scramble to cut budgets by 50%… with no idea which half.
What a horrible state of affairs that people want to leave, in their droves…
... conditions in their workplace, their state of mind, hopes and confidence in the future… to say nothing of the resident doctors bailing out, and applications to become a nurse down by a third.
Political choices and chaotic management have brought us to an all-time low. The NHS is in free-fall…
… struggling with waiting lists, a Ten‑Year Plan, with no plan and a workforce cull. Aren’t we blessed with clever leadership?
It’s the time-served who might make sense of redundancy. Dovetailing with their pension… say goodbye to talent, know-how and history.
No one group will be watching the culling process closer than those who choose to stay. How this dirty-work is done will shape the morale and attitude of the workforce of the future.
So, do it right and try not to make it worse.
Five things to do;
1.Provide real outplacement support, not just a leaflet.
Bring in proper career advisers. Help staff write CVs (many of whom will have been in the NHS for 20yrs or more and don’t have one) that sell their NHS experience in language employers understand.
2. Allow time off and mean it.
Paid leave for interviews, training courses and assessment days. No guilt trips, no last‑minute refusals.
3. Offer interview coaching.
Mock interviews with constructive feedback, tailored to roles inside and outside healthcare. Confidence comes from preparation.
4. Fund training and re‑skilling.
Work with colleges and online providers. A course in IT, project management, or leadership could make the difference between a dead end and a new start.
5. Communicate openly and personally.
Honest, one‑to‑one conversations about what’s happening, when and what the package looks like. People can suffer bad news… but silence kills them.
Five things not to do;
1. Don’t push people out the door with nothing.
A five‑minute HR meeting and a goodbye email is no way to treat loyal staff.
2. Don’t pretend it’s not happening.
Staff read the papers. Hiding the numbers only destroys trust and productivity will slide.
3. Don’t deny time to job‑hunt.
Making staff work flat-out until the last day is both cruel and self‑defeating.
4. Don’t throw away hard‑won knowledge.
Capture it. Handover notes, mentoring, exit interviews. Don’t lose skills and know‑how, on top of losing people.
5. Don’t forget the ones left behind.
Cuts hit survivors too. Reassure them, or you’ll have a second wave of resignations.
… it’s basic decency.
NHSE should set minimum redundancy support standards. Anything less is a race to the bottom and ‘two fingers’ to the workforce.
Be mindful of double jeopardy (everyone involved in redundancy should read this): The surreptitious consequences of redundancy.
‘… when employers emphasise targets, i.e. 'we need x number of employees to exit the organisation by x date'; then the experience for employees is dehumanised…’
… and that’s where the trouble starts.
When you cut staff, those who are left will cut corners and we know from Mid-Staffs the upshot is cuts to care.
This year the winter plan looks like fewer staff and more chaos.
There is no cure for cuts, just casualties.
-oOo-
Afterthought;
When half the workforce goes, the work stays.
The rest just do twice as much,
for the same money,
with a smile.
Apparently.
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