An NHS Tayside employee says staff are struggling to do more than one job as positions go unfilled in a bid to slash the budget.
The situation looks unlikely to improve any time soon as the health authority’s director of finance, Ian McDonald, confirmed there is a freeze on ”non-essential” recruitment.
He said that will last at least until the end of next March and probably beyond.
The disgruntled employee said: ”There are not enough bodies to do the work and we are getting absolutely pummelled with jobs. Management have got to save 30-odd million pounds so there are cutbacks and they are not filling jobs.
”The people that are left are getting hit with doing their own job and the jobs of the people that are not replaced. It is really hard and nobody seems to be doing anything about it.”
A Ninewells Hospital worker was unimpressed with the claim the freeze is limited to ”non-essential” posts.
”What the managers don’t realise is that if there aren’t enough cleaners, porters and kitchen staff, then the doctors and nurses can’t do their jobs properly. Doctors and nurses aren’t the only essential staff.”
Mr McDonald said he was leading by example and was not filling three posts that had become vacant in his own department.
”It just means every other member of staff is having to work a bit harder,” he said.
He explained that managers who want to take on staff and fill posts must go before an NHS Tayside panel that scrutinises the request.
”For posts that become vacant between now and March 31, they will be separated into two essential to recruit or non-essential. Essential posts we will fill. If they are not essential, they will be deferred.
”That is not just an issue between now and March 31 but that would probably continue in to 2012/13 (financial year beginning April 1).”
NHS Tayside senior executives and non-executives went behind closed doors on Thursday to discuss the recruitment freeze in detail and other measures aimed at helping the authority try to live within its means as budgets are squeezed.