NHS staff cuts 'will harm patient care'

STAFF cuts across NHS Lothian will still harm patient care, even if frontline workers are protected, it has been warned.

The Royal College of Nursing in Edinburgh said recruitment freezes and cutting support for nurses was damaging both for patients and the NHS as a whole.

It emerged last week that the local health board is planning to shed 700 jobs as part of cost-cutting measures.

And while health chiefs said those cuts would come from natural wastage – promising there would be no compulsory redundancies – the RCN said the situation still had to be evaluated.

Director Theresa Fyffe said: "Other proposals by health boards, such as recruitment freezes, cutting support for frontline staff and replacing registered nurses with non- registered support staff are guaranteed ways to damage patient care."

Health secretary Nicola Sturgeon said all money saved through these moves would be put back into patient care.