The latest announcement by the Te Whatu Ora CEO of proposed redundancies is no surprise. That said, the Society firmly believes staff cuts are the last thing that the health service needs. To the contrary, across most services numbers need to be increased to meet current needs.
The current situation with Te Whatu Ora arises from underfunding, not overspending.
o Since staff salaries are the biggest item of expenditure within Te Whatu Ora, cutting staff is an inevitable consequence of underfunding. It is the only way of significantly containing costs and operating with an inadequate budget.
o In many instances this decrease in staff will be achieved by attrition and curbs on hiring, rather than redundancies.
o At this stage the proposed redundancies are focused on non-clinical staff.
o Of course, cuts in non-clinical staff numbers still has implications for the workload of clinical staff. Consequently any staff reductions are problematic and unwelcome.
The latest announcement by the Te Whatu Ora CEO of proposed redundancies is no surprise. That said, the Society firmly believes staff cuts are the last thing that the health service needs. To the contrary, across most services numbers need to be increased to meet current needs.
The current situation with Te Whatu Ora arises from underfunding, not overspending.
o Since staff salaries are the biggest item of expenditure within Te Whatu Ora, cutting staff is an inevitable consequence of underfunding. It is the only way of significantly containing costs and operating with an inadequate budget.
o In many instances this decrease in staff will be achieved by attrition and curbs on hiring, rather than redundancies.
o At this stage the proposed redundancies are focused on non-clinical staff.
o Of course, cuts in non-clinical staff numbers still has implications for the workload of clinical staff. Consequently any staff reductions are problematic and unwelcome.