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Spare Beds Seen as Problem in Chester Foundation Hospital

Revol | 04.08.2006 18:46 | Health | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | Liverpool

At last, some good news in the NHS - the Countess of Chester hospital has fifty more beds than they need! But the bosses in the market-driven foundation hospital actually see this as a problem, so the beds are to be axed!



Claiming that improved efficiency at the hospital has reduced the amount of time patients need to stay and cut overnight admissions, the managers plan to get rid of this 'problem' by getting rid of the beds, as well as fifty staff who attend them.

Hospital trust chief executive Peter Herring said all permanent staff would be redeployed to other positions.

"Detailed discussions on proposals for dealing with the staff displaced by the closures will be held with the relevant staff organisations during the coming weeks," he said.

"As appropriate, the trust will offer a voluntary severance scheme and early retirement options to avoid compulsory redundancies if at all possible."

The trust said it will still have capacity to deal with people arriving at the hospital's emergency unit and there would be no reduction in services.

In a sane world, having spare beds and workers in the health service would be welcomed, as each worker would have less to do! In the market-run National Wealth Service of the new millennium, profit must always come before people.

Revol

Comments

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Its not a market based NHS, but a privatising one

04.08.2006 21:15

The big problem with the NHS does not seem to be just its market based approach, but the fact that it is undergoing a massive stealth privatisation. It is because of this that so many hospitals are seeing mass lay-offs because of humungous debts.

 http://www.cornishguardian.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=147165&command=displayContent&sourceNode=147162&contentPK=15039921&folderPk=83400

 http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=9286

joanie willett