Hospitals in UK that are heavily strapped for cash are planning on letting go of staff and outsourcing the administrative work to India.
New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton, a hospital in such a crisis which has axed 300 jobs and is moving its admin work to India hoping to save about £2.5 million a year. The management hope that with this move they would halve their annual £5 million medical secretary bill by sending voice recordings over the internet to be typed up in India.Chief executive David Loughton expressing concern as to whether it would work or not, stated that they are looking into it and that the system will be tested for two months. He said that this would be an experiment to try and cut back on unnecessary expenditure. Stating that the hospital spends about £5 million a year on the medical secretaries and that their auditors have advised them that the expenditure can be halved by sending work overseas. He also said that they would still have personal assistants working to organize diaries but plan to remove the copy typing.
The acute cash crunch seems to be hitting many hospitals in the UK. Reports of thousands of NHS jobs are being cut in the Midlands, and a 1000 are set to be axed at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent, is planning on axing nearly about a 1000 of the staff. Managers at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust have also announced that they are letting go of about 720 jobs. The hospital is run by a trust. Shropshire's two main hospitals, the Princess Royal Hospital and Royal Shrewsbury Hospital have also announced about 300 job losses. Meanwhile, the Mid Staffordshire General Hospitals NHS Trust also revealed they planned to cut more than 150 jobs.
