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A major London NHS hospital trust has frozen the recruitment of all external staff as it faces a £31 million deficit.
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, which has more than 23,000 employees across five hospitals, told staff on Monday that it had imposed an “enhanced vacancy control (or freeze)” on external recruitment.
The hiring freeze at Guy’s & St Thomas’ comes after an independent benchmark report into the state of the NHS last week found the health service was in a “critical condition”.
“Our costs remain much higher than before the pandemic and it is really important to bring these costs down,” said Steven Davies, the trust’s chief financial officer, in a note to staff seen by the Financial Times.
Davies said the trust continued to be “under considerable financial pressure”, adding: “We must act to reduce this by closely controlling the recruitment and use of temporary staff.”
The UK’s new Labor government has promised to improve NHS standards and reduce waiting lists, while curbing spending and tackling recruitment issues.
The government agreed to a 5.5 percent inflation-adjusted pay rise for health workers after taking office in July, and also ended a long-running strike by junior doctors with a pay offer of 22 per cent.
At the same time, Chancellor Rachel Reeves ordered central government departments to find cost savings before their first Budget on October 30.
The hiring freeze follows a ransomware hack in July by Russian group Qilin on lab service provider Synnovis, which disrupted blood transfusions and tests at Guy’s and St Thomas’ trust hospitals.
While part of the current shortfall in its budget is due to the impact of the attack, Davies said “the key issue is that we are not delivering on our planned manpower savings”.
The trust has set a target of cutting 4 per cent of expenses, or £94mn, to spread this year, with around £50mn to be achieved by reducing staff costs, according to the note.
At the end of July, the trust had a deficit of £31mn against an expected shortfall of £8mn, leaving it £23mn behind its repayment plan, the memo added.
The hiring freeze was reviewed in December and covers most clinical and non-clinical roles. “The aim is to reduce staff numbers through natural turnover rather than restructuring,” the trust told employees.
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust confirmed the hiring restrictions, adding: “As is the case across the NHS, we are facing considerable financial pressure and need to make savings.
“Requests to fill vacancies will be reviewed against the needs of the service to ensure there is no negative impact on patient care.”