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NHS Redundancies

Volume 454: debated on Wednesday 6 December 2006

To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what estimate her Department has made of the total number of redundancies which will take place in NHS organisations in the 2006-07 financial year in order to arrive at the estimated £70 million additional costs of redundancy described in paragraph 1.6, page 2, of her Department's document NHS Financial Performance Quarter 2 2006-07; (101932)

(2) if she will express in constant prices the figures given in Table 1 of the answer of 8 November 2006, Official Report, column 1875W.

The Department intends to publish actual national health service redundancy data on a quarterly basis.

The most recent actual redundancy data were collected from the NHS as at the end of September, and then published in the NHS Financial Performance Report for quarter 2 of 2006-07. At the end of September, the NHS reported 903 compulsory redundancies.

The impact of age discrimination legislation is a factor to be considered by strategic health authorities when preparing their forecast positions. It is not helpful otherwise to the NHS to engage in speculation about the number of any further redundancies.