More than 40 mental health workers in Norfolk have been told they are being made redundant as part of a restructure of an NHS trust, it was announced today.

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust said 41 members of staff, who work in Norwich and West Norfolk, had been issued with notices of redundancy following a consultation.

The mental health trust is planning to cut 502 out of 2,128 posts and 20pc of its inpatient beds by 2016 in order to balance its books.

The job losses announced today affect staff working in the Dementia and Complexity in Later Life (DCLL) services, who work at the Julian Hospital in Norwich and Chatterton House and the Fermoy Unit in King’s Lynn.

The service redesign will mean staffing numbers will reduce from 178 to 137 and 41 members of staff were issued with notice of redundancy, which includes support workers, trained staff nurses, managers and service leads.

A spokesman for the mental health trust said the staff being made redundant were being given notices of between 12 and one month, depending on their contracts.

The spokesman said: “Support will be offered to all impacted staff. This does not mean all these staff will immediately leave the Trust. This is the start of a huge, complex set of changes which could mean staff use their skills and experience in a different way or in different service.”

“To support this, the trust has offered some of the affected staff an extended period of redundancy notice designed to give them more time to find alternative roles as other areas of the trust services change in line with the strategy.”

“The DCLL service is the start of the changes outlined in the strategy and the trust has always been very clear that it wishes to minimise the number of redundancies as much as possible.”

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