9 November 2005
Health visiting and community nursing services are under siege, facing cuts as a result of Primary Care Trust (PCT) deficits and now facing the fragmentation of their services through an NHS review of community service delivery, Amicus has warned today.
On the eve of a conference of community practitioners in Bournemouth, Amicus says that hundreds of jobs are threatened in the coming year due to PCTs £250 million budget deficits. The union says that vacancy freezes and training cuts in primary health care services are already commonplace, affecting their members ability to provide essential community nursing services.
Amicus says the situation is being worsened by a 'climate of fear' prevalent in the NHS which is preventing community practitioners who fear that services in their area are under threat from speaking out in case they are targeted in job cuts.
A recent survey by Amicus revealed that 50 per cent of PCTs had or were proposing to cut to the number of experienced community practitioners.
Gail Cartmail, Amicus' National Officer for Health, said: "Ninety per cent of first medical contacts are in the community. They are vital in every aspect of health prevention and service delivery, helping and protecting some of the most vulnerable children and adults in our community, yet they are being treated as soft targets by PCTs attempting to make cost savings."
Karen Reay, Amicus' lead officer for Community Practitioners, said: "We believe that the extent of staff cuts being proposed will inevitably impact on the nation's health and government targets to deliver healthcare improvements. Any savings made by cuts to community nursing are short-term and short-sighted and will result in much greater problems and expense further down the line."
Amicus saya that the Department of Health's proposals for reorganising PCTs, Commissioning a Patient-led NHS, threatens the fragmentation of community nursing provision. The union has warned that patients and vulnerable people are likely to slip through the net because of the difficulty involved in coordinating services that are broken-down.
The union is also opposed to the community practitioners being employed outside of the NHS were their pay and pensions will not be protected.
Amicus' health sector has over 100,000 members working across the NHS.
