Two more hospitals have added their names to the growing number of Trusts that have announced job cuts in the NHS. Kingston Hospital and St George’s Hospital Tooting have both said that 486 and 200 jobs respectively will go as they try to cut costs and save money. Inevitably, some of these jobs will be front line staff and unions are increasingly worried that despite assurances that the NHS would be effectively ‘ringfenced’, the truth is that the service is facing a jobs crisis.

Unison leaders are not reassured by the promise that redundancies in both hospitals will be kept to a minimum, with those losing their jobs being reallocated positions elsewhere within the organisation. They see the announcements as further confirmation that the NHS is in trouble. Unison general secretary Dave Prentis described the current situation as “reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher’s devastating reforms during the ‘80s and ‘90s”, and this is not the first time that David Cameron’s leadership style has been likened to the Iron Lady herself. “This announcement is more proof that the NHS is not safe in David Cameron and Andrew Lansley’s hands,” he said, and judging by the current rash of announcements of job cuts within the NHS, he is not alone in that assumption.

So will a smaller, leaner NHS work effectively? And what prospects are there for those looking for employment within the sector? The current thinking is that many of the job losses will be through ‘natural wastage’ and that reliance on temporary staff may increase to plug the gaps left by permanent losses in the workforce. Agencies are gearing up for a flood of new candidates all looking for work within the NHS. So perhaps the outcome will be that the brightest and best do end up on the front line, while those who are not as experienced or as qualified may have to start thinking about alternative careers. This may actually improve the situation for patients in the long term, but during this difficult transition period expect to see the NHS wobbling precariously before it re-establishes itself as the quality healthcare service we have all come to expect.