Doctors and nurses 'bear brunt of NHS job cuts'

Clinical staff, including doctors and nurses, are accounting for half of NHS job cuts across the UK, it has been claimed.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN), which is holding its annual conference in Liverpool, said cutting these jobs could have "catastrophic consequences" for patient safety and care.

It said some hospitals were shedding hundreds of nurses, while others were downgrading nursing jobs by using less-qualified healthcare assistants instead.

The union said it had identified almost 40,000 NHS posts across the UK that faced the axe over the next three years, up from the 27,000 it reported in November.

Last year, figures showed more than 3,000 were set to go in the NHS in Scotland during 2010-11, though health boards said the figures were only projections and they would avoid compulsory redundancies.

However, The Scotsman revealed last month that almost 2,500 jobs had already been axed a month before the end of the financial year - with hundreds more expected to have gone by the end of March.

Scottish RCN delegates will today debate how closely they can work with employers and governments during a period of cutbacks in the NHS.