PROPOSED £240m cuts to healthcare spending in Oxfordshire could mean job and service losses, health bosses warned last night.

NHS Oxfordshire, which plans and provides health care and funds hospital treatments, announced it could need to make savings of up to £80m a year from April 2011 because its budget might not be increased after the next financial year.

The organisation, which was formerly called Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust (PCT), will next year receive an increase of £40m on its £800m a year budget, which it uses to plan and purchase healthcare for the people of Oxfordshire.

However the service is preparing for yearly increases to cease for three years from 2011 as the country struggles to cope with the economic crisis.

It has claimed savings will need to be made because demand for services, and costs, such as staff salaries and inflation, will continue to rise.

NHS Oxfordshire commissions agency staff for roles in hospitals and the community.

Matthew Tait, acting chief executive of NHS Oxfordshire, said the number of agency staff employed by NHS Oxfordshire could ‘level off’ and warned of job losses.

He said: “We won’t be seeing an increase in the workforce over the next three to five years. We may even see a reduction in overall numbers of staff.”

Mr Tait said the need for cost-cutting meant NHS Oxfordshire would look at cutting services which were ‘ineffective and inefficient’ and would encourage people to start managing their own health care.

He remained tight lipped about which services could be axed, but said NHS Oxfordshire would look at increasing GP surgery opening hours, developing community services so people will not need to come into the county’s hospitals, and shortening expensive hospital stays, which can cost up to £500 a night, in a bid to drive down costs.

He added: “We are facing the enormous task of ensuring services are efficient and getting best value for money while meeting the health and social care needs of local people.”

Last week the Oxford Mail revealed thousands of people with minor ailments were clogging up the county’s two casualty departments and costing up to £3m a year.

NHS Oxfordshire has already launched a campaign to encourage people to think twice before heading to hospital with illnesses which would be better treated by a GP or pharmacist.

Last night Mark Ladbrooke, regional secretary for the public service union Unison, said he would meet NHS Oxfordshire to ask why cuts were necessary.

He said: “We’re very concerned about these proposals. We want to see the justification.

“They’re announcing cuts without explaining the reasons, and it really isn’t acceptable.”

awilliams@oxfordmail.co.uk