MORE than 500 North-East jobs are to be axed as part of NHS cuts – and hundreds more are under threat, it has been revealed.

Hundreds of office workers are to lose their jobs over the next eight months and the losses are the first in what is expected to be a massive reduction in NHS administrative posts in the next two years.

Health trade unions voiced concerns that the cuts would have a negative impact on patient services and expressed scepticism about whether the cash would be spent on the frontline services.

The cuts to managerial and administrative staff involve the North-East Strategic Health Authority and the 12 primary care trusts in the region.

The biggest single job losses will be at County Durham Primary Care Trust, where 110 jobs are to go.

Sunderland trust, which loses 85 posts, Middlesbrough, which loses 82 and Stockton, which loses 80, are the hardest hit in the region.

The aim of the Governmentbacked programme of cuts is to switch NHS resources from backroom administrative activities to frontline doctors and nurses.

But hundreds more jobs are expected to go when the Government abolishes regional health authorities and primary care trusts in 2013 and replaces them with a network of GP commissioning consortia.

Officials say the loss of 516 administrative posts will allow a total of £27m to be invested in frontline health services.

Most of the jobs will go in trust offices around the region, but 37 posts will go at the North-East Strategic Health Authority – NHS North-East.

A spokeswoman for the NHS said the number of posts to be cut had been distributed across all organisations and calculated in relation to the populations served and management costs in each area.

Most of the posts being cut related to the commissioning of health services.

The spokeswoman said the Strategic Health Authority and the trusts have “invited expressions of interest” from members of staff wishing to be considered for redundancy.

While it was hoped that compulsory redundancies would be avoided it was too soon to say whether this would be necessary, she said.

David Stout, executive director of finance at NHS North-East, said: “Like all public sector organisations, the NHS in the region must deliver substantial savings to meet challenges of a difficult economic environment. The management cost reductions we have outlined will inevitably impact on many people and we are, of course, committed to keeping staff fully informed throughout this difficult process.

“The savings made will be reinvested directly in frontline NHS services so that we can meet the future challenges of coping with an ageing population, the introduction of new treatments and technologies, and increasing our focus on prevention.”

Kath Toward, a former nonexecutive director of the old Durham Dales Primary Care Trust (PCT), said: “I am not a management basher. There’s a place for somebody to manage the service so doctors and nurses can get on with treating patients. If you take out a lot of management and then expect clinical staff to do their work, that could have a knockon effect on patient care.”

She said the changes had to be managed “very carefully”.

Trevor Johnston, Unison lead officer for health in the North-East, said: “Managers and administrative staff carry out important functions in the NHS.

“We’re very concerned that a reduction in these areas will lead to frontline staff being unable to function effectively due to lack of administrative and managerial back-up.”

Glenn Turp, regional director of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “Each of these job losses will be a personal tragedy for the individual concerned.”

Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients’ Association, said: “With the NHS facing financial restrictions as part of the Government’s austerity drive, it is essential that we recognize areas where efficiency savings can be made without affecting frontline services.”

Last month, North Yorkshire and York PCT asked its staff for expressions of interest in voluntary redundancy, career breaks, unpaid leave or a voluntary reduction in hours as part of the same effort to cut management costs.