Eight jobs to go at NHS Shetland as nationwide squeeze hits home

NHS Shetland is forecasting the loss of eight jobs over the next year as part of a nationwide squeeze on health budgets.

However chief executive Sandra Laurenson said there would be no compulsory redundancies as part of the move, insisting many of the posts due to go were for staff coming to the end of their fixed terms.

At the same time many new jobs will be advertised to help maintain services for patients. Although 17 jobs in total are to be cut, a further nine will be created, giving a “net result” of eight job losses.

The cuts will largely be made in nursing, however most of those posts will go from the interim placement unit at Montfield, which has been used for patients waiting to transfer to care home places. The unit has been underused and there are currently no patients using the 16 beds.

In the meantime it is hoped to gain some nursing jobs in acute and community care.

A number of trainee dental jobs could go, but the intention is to regain those posts and add additional dentists to the service as well. Other jobs could also disappear from administration and support.

“We have to look for efficiencies wherever we can but some of these will have been for fixed terms because they will be for a specific type of work or will have been funded nationally,” said Ms Laurenson.

“For Shetland the number of job losses is small, and we don’t expect them to have a negative impact on patient services.”

The NHS in Scotland is facing the loss of up to 4,000 posts.