‘Staff at risk’ in Argyll and Bute health and social care financial crisis

Job cuts are inevitable because of the ongoing financial crisis affecting health and social care in Argyll and  Bute, it was confirmed this week.

The area’s Health and Social Care Partnership has confirmed that staff will be affected by the funding gap it faces of between £5m and £6m.

A statement yesterday said that ‘a gap of this size is a real challenge when many of our costs are related to staff’.

Changes to ‘a small number of services’ will mean workers facing redeployment, TUPE transfer to other service providers or redundancy – the last option would only apply to Argyll and Bute Council staff.

Sandy Wilkie, head of people and change at Argyll and Bute HSCP, said there would be some ‘natural turnover’ of staff and it was not possible at this stage to say how many people would be affected, although this would be more clear after a meeting of the integration joint board on March 28.

“We have discussed at length over the last few weeks what service changes can be made that will minimise the impact on our communities,” he added.

“This is a particularly challenging time for our local HSCP.  We genuinely value the contribution of all staff who deliver health and social care services within Argyll and Bute.

“We need to engage them in service changes over the coming months, so that they can help shape how things look going forward.

“We have also tried to reduce the numbers of staff potentially affected.

“The need to set a balanced budget creates conflicting priorities between quality, performance and financial balance.

“Whilst we are committed to protecting our core services, we have identified a small number of service changes where staff may be at risk.”