NHS training budget cull leaves 500 staff at risk as higher education fears jobs meltdown

Five hundred jobs in healthcare training are at risk due to budget cuts and they represent the thin end of the wedge when it comes to higher education job cuts across the sector, UCU has warned. Over 400 academic posts in nursing and midwifery are in danger, along with a further 100 in areas like radiography, physiotherapy and speech therapy, after ministers said they wanted to reduce the agreed level of funding for healthcare education by 9%.

'These cuts would have a devastating impact on delivering access to patients and carers'
Grahame Pope
University of Nottingham

Training for over 70,000 nursing students in England will be affected if a promised training budget rise of 12.8 % for universities is cut to 3.9. Healthcare education was given the extra money to make up for years of underfunding, but is now being told it is 'unaffordable'.
 
Ballot papers will be sent to UCU members this week asking them to vote for industrial action as the union fears a potential jobs meltdown across higher education. Up to 100 universities have signalled their intention to make redundancies. The union said that industrial action will remain a final option, but disruption to universities is on the cards unless the employers agree to sort out a national agreement to halt the swathing cuts in higher education. Ballot papers will begin to be issued on Friday (1 May) and the ballot will conclude on Friday 22 May.
 
UCU has called on the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) to sit down with the union and thrash out proposals that will protect jobs and prevent unnecessary cuts. It has rejected the employers' organisation's call 'to be patient' when so many jobs are on the line and says action is needed.  It said its intelligence serious job losses are a possibility across the country and wants a national agreement that will force universities to consider all possible options, with compulsory redundancies as a last resort. At present it believes too many institutions are looking to make cuts without making a case for job losses or consulting with the union.

'We are overstretched as it is, so to reduce our workforce by 9% would be a disaster for students and patients.'
Julia Charlton
University of Northumbria

Last month the University of Reading closed its highly successful School of Health and Social Care, despite a national shortage of social workers, and last week Thames Valley University said it will shut its Slough campus. The University of Liverpool plans to axe its philosophy, politics and communications and statistics departments, and has put five others under review, including cancer studies.

Julia Charlton, a senior nursing lecturer at the University of Northumbria, with years of experience in training students, said: 'We teach nurses all their basic skills from taking blood pressure to coping when a patient dies. We make sure nurses are safe to practice. Any cut in funding will lead to increased class sizes and less contact time with students. We are overstretched as it is, so to reduce our workforce by 9% would be a disaster for students and patients. We have an ageing population who need the best qualified nurses.'

Grahame Pope, who teaches physiotherapy at the University of Nottingham, warned: 'Student contact is constantly under pressure, and we cannot afford to increase class sizes any more. I work in area that helps patients suffering from cerebral palsy, which David Cameron's son died of, cystic fibrosis and back problems, which is the biggest cause of sick leave in the country. I also teach students how to help stroke victims. Strokes costs the NHS £2.8 billion a year. The government said that it wants to increase access to rehabilitation services, but these cuts would have a devastating impact on delivering access to patients and carers.'

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'The pace of job cuts and restructuring is quickening across the entire higher education sector, at a time when research and high quality teaching is badly needed. Employers keep telling us to be patient, but people are at risk now. We cannot wait any longer, this crisis needs to be sorted out immediately, and without meaningful talks we are left with no option but to consider strike action. Industrial action is always a last resort, but the time for sitting idly by has gone.
 
'How can making cuts to healthcare education be a good thing? The UK should be looking to invest in education across the board, not scaling back on it. 500 healthcare jobs are at risk here and I'm afraid these losses will be the first of many. UCU is hearing reports on a daily basis about potential new redundancies. Britain can ill afford to lose any more knowledge and expertise if it wants to produce the best professionals and help train people during the recession. Cuts in funding and job losses would be a disaster for students and the country.'