Fears over charity nurse redundancies

Independent Nurse,
16 February 2009, 00:00am

Nurses employed by charities may face redundancies over the next year, according to the union Unite.

A £43 million government funding package to support the UK's 200,000 charities announced this month is not enough, say union leaders.

Many specialist nurses are employed by charities and hospices. One of the largest, Marie Curie Cancer care, employs over 2,700 nurses.

Rachael Maskell, Unite's national officer for the community and non-profit sector, said she believed that all charities that provided health services were going to struggle, and it would get worse next year.

More money needed to be pumped into the voluntary and community sector to prevent further job losses, she said. 'Next year there will be a real pressure on the sector - organisations will have to slim down, re-organise or go under.'

Ms Maskell said the government's funding package for UK charities was 'a drop in the ocean' compared with the assistance the financial sector had received.

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