31/03/2011

 

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has taken the decision that employees will retire at 65 years of age, effectively in line with its current retirement policy.

 

The decision to reinforce retirement at 65 was taken by the Executive Directors of the Trust following consultation with a working group chaired by the Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development and including representatives of the Staffside Committee and Staff Governors.

 

Dr Frank Harsent, Chief Executive, said: “We recognise that we will be losing people with long service and who will have been long-standing members of their teams. I greatly value the experience of employees of all ages and I understand that this may be upsetting for some members of staff, their families and their colleagues and I do sincerely regret that.

 

“We have told staff in a number of open forums this year that we would be considering this as part of our plan to achieve our efficiency savings. The discussions which led to this decision were conducted very carefully and took account of all the surrounding issues.”

 

The Trust needs to find £18million in efficiency savings in the coming financial year (by March 31st 2012), and with 70% of the Trust’s costs comprised of staffing, this inevitably means reducing posts within the organisation. Current predictions signal that this is likely to involve several hundred posts.

 

The Trust is however keen to avoid the need for compulsory redundancies and the Trust’s HR Team and staff representatives are jointly exploring all options for making savings to the pay budget. Asking people to retire at 65 is one of those options.

 

There are 134 people who will receive their letters of retirement by March 30th, giving them a retirement date early in October. This includes employees in all staff groups across the organisation.

 

The intention is that as few of these posts as possible will be replaced. Under the Trust retirement policy, individual members of staff have the right to ask to carry on working and this will be considered in exceptional circumstances where there would otherwise be a potential disruption to patient services.

 

Due to the very real need to reduce the size of the organisation it is expected that there will be few exceptions.