MANAGERS working in the NHS in Worcestershire have been warned their jobs will be the first to go as chiefs seek to bridge a £60 million funding gap.

Doctors across the county are also being told to stop sending so many patients to hospital and to issue cheaper drugs in a bid to save money.

But a senior doctor said that is already happening and added he was not sure how the huge savings, which need to be made by the end of 2013/14, could be made without dramatic cuts to frontline services.

At Worcestershire County Council’s health overview and scrutiny committee Paul Bates, chief executive of NHS Worcestershire – which holds the purse strings for all of the county’s main healthcare services – said: “Management costs at the NHS will be reduced dramatically.

“The first people who will feel the heat will be the people who work alongside me.

“Thereafter I have no idea at the moment where the cuts will be.” We previously reported how Mr Bates said he could not promise there will be no cuts to frontline jobs or services provided by nurses, doctors and carers – despite Government orders that there will be no ‘slash and burn’ cuts in the NHS during the recession – and thought “hundreds of jobs” could be lost in a bid to balance budgets.

As a result he is urging GPs to reduce outpatient attendances and the costs of prescribing medication, something he thought could save the local NHS about £500,000 a year.

Speaking after the meeting Dr Simon Parkinson, who is secretary of Worcestershire Local Medical Committee, said he was “sick” of sucH talk because he thought that work was already happening.

“Worcestershire’s GPs have been monitored on their prescriptions for years so I think there’s very little scope for savings there,” he said.

Dr Parkinson said he wanted to see a “smarter” referral system developed which would allow surgeries to specialise in certain services currently delivered in hospitals, such as minor surgical operations.

He said that would save money because such procedures are currently more expensive when delivered in hospitals.

“I’m quite sure we could manage our patients in Worcestershire in some areas much better,” he said. “They might even get a better treatment more locally.”

Patients representative Pat Fisher said she supported the use of non-branded drugs to save money and taking more services out into the community as long as the “best treatment and care was still being offered to population of Worcestershire”.

* Your Worcester News was the only member of the media to attend this meeting.