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'Forced' retirement letters slammed by NHS staff in Bucks
Fuming hospital staff have hit out after workers approaching their 65th birthday were told that they may be forced to retire this year.
Union chiefs have vowed to fight after letters were sent out to staff by the Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust last week.
Steve Bell, branch secretary for the Bucks Health branch of Unison, said yesterday: "I've already had a number of calls from people who are upset and distressed. Many of them had planned to continue working.
"Retirement should be considered jointly by the employee and the manager on an individual basis, rather than as a knee jerk reaction."
And Mr Bell slammed the way workers are being treated. "I think it's an appalling way to treat people who have given many years of dedicated service.
"We are in the process of developing a response, we're certainly not happy about it."
The trust says that it needs to save around 10 per cent of its budget in the next year.
A spokeswoman said: "Given that our largest expenditure is the pay bill, which accounts for over 60 per cent of our spend, we are in ongoing discussions with our staff and are looking at a variety of ways of reducing our these costs in order to keep the number of compulsory redundancies to an absolute minimum.
"This includes reducing our use of temporary staffing, managing sickness absence and looking at not replacing non-critical posts arising from planned retirements."
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Weather for Aylesbury
Friday 25 May 2012
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