NHS leaders are urging the Chancellor to rapidly create a national staff redundancy fund following significant NHS job cuts
Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) have been tasked with cutting their running costs by 50% from October 2025, with individual plans to be submitted for government approval by the end of next month. NHS trusts have also been told to reduce their “corporate cost growth” by half the amount from the year before the pandemic.
However, without a national redundancy fund, NHS leaders say that the redundancy programme will take much longer to deliver and will reduce savings from job cuts.
Media reports suggest up to 30,000 NHS jobs could be cut
The NHS job cuts would mean the health service will begin the next financial year in a financial deficit. Health leaders fear that doing this would put the reform agenda, including the commitment to reduce waiting times to 18 weeks by the end of Parliament and to shift more care into the community, at risk.
The media has reported that up to 30,000 roles across the NHS could be cut, including through the planned abolition of NHS England, and that the total bill could reach £1bn; however, the NHS Confederation has heard varying figures from leaders about their expected cuts.
Some leaders of NHS trusts have said they are each looking to cut between 200 and 500 NHS job roles, while some ICB leaders have said they will likely remove anywhere between 300 and 400.
Several trust leaders said they were budgeting for around £12m of redundancy payouts and associated costs for the NHS job cuts.
When looking at the proportion of the workforce that could be removed across NHS trusts, individual estimates from leaders have varied from 3% to over 11%.
Lack of clear guidance on redundancy options
NHS leaders have warned that scaling down will take much longer than the government has asked without access to a dedicated redundancy fund, similar to what was confirmed for NHS England staff.
Furthermore, if NHS trusts are forced to provide necessary payouts from their budgets, this will slow the progress and risk stalling any efficiency savings. Recent analysis has revealed that the gap between trusts’ regular income and expenditure is £6bn, and this underlying deficit could derail the government’s reform plans.
One NHS trust CEO said: “Essentially, without clear guidance on underwriting redundancy options, whether these are voluntary, mutual, or compulsory, we are dependent on natural turnover and … [other] processes, which are slow and cumbersome.
“Accelerating savings would be possible if the underwriting of impacts could be funded within the year.”
Another said: “We are not planning a redundancy programme as it will be unaffordable; we plan to reduce headcount through natural turnover, although this puts a level of risk on delivery.”
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, called on the government to commit to urgently establishing a redundancy fund for NHS trusts and ICBs.
“Health leaders understand the country’s troubling financial situation and the need to improve efficiency where they can, as they have already demonstrated by significantly reducing their planned deficit for the year ahead.
“However, the scale and pace of what has been asked of them to downsize is staggering and leaves them fearful of finding the right balance between improving performance and implementing the reforms needed to put the NHS on a sustainable footing.
“They have told us that unless the Treasury urgently creates a national redundancy fund to cover these job losses, any savings the government hopes to make risks being eroded, at best and completely wiped out, at worst. If the Ten-Year Plan for Health is to be realised, it requires the NHS to be in a position of financial stability.”
