The Lancashire Lead

The Lancashire Lead

Up to 200 jobs at risk as Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust aims at £39m in savings

Paul Foster, Labour's MP for South Ribble, calls for transparency in the process

Luke Beardsworth's avatar
The Lancashire Lead's avatar
Luke Beardsworth
and
The Lancashire Lead
Oct 22, 2025
∙ Paid
1
1
Share

Hello and welcome to The Lancashire Lead.

Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust will make redundancies in the coming months and that is the topic of today’s newsletter.

There are calls for transparency in the process as the trust is at present not giving the number of jobs it expects to go.

It’s particularly alarming in relation to mental health services and support for those with learning disabilities given that neither issue is one that is likely to get easier for the NHS to deal with in the near future.

And the role of AI in the loss of jobs cannot be overlooked - technology will evolve but there will be a real human impact as this happens across the UK in the coming years that will be likely increase the burden on the government’s welfare bill.

The Lancashire Lead is independent journalism and needs your support to stay alive. Consider a paid subscription for about the cost of a pint today.

Lancashire briefing

🌹 A survey into the government-ordered shake-up under which all 15 main councils in Lancashire would be axed and replaced with a handful of new authorities yielded over 13,000 results. 63% of those who answered said they wanted to maintain the current arrangement. The results were skewed by a disproportionate number of responses in areas where there has been active campaigning against the move - namely in Fylde and in Burnley. But even those numbers did not change the fact that most people like the council arrangement the way it is. The benefit people identified most clearly was having a single point of contact around council issues - rather than councillors from different parties representing a single area at different tiers as is currently the case.

🏠 Blackburn with Darwen Council is inviting public feedback on its draft Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy as it seeks to further cut the number of people living on its streets. Anyone is welcome to complete the online survey to share their views on how the authority can best support people who are homeless or at risk of losing their homes. Councillors on the Blackburn with Darwen Executive Board approved the draft Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2026 to 2031 at their meeting this month. This highlighted the dramatic 47 per cent reduction in people sleeping rough in Blackburn with Darwen since 2021. Across the UK there has been a 20 per cent rise.

👑 A Burger King branch is set to be built in the car park of Leyland’s Tesco Extra store after getting the green light from councillors. Locals claimed that the eatery – with both dine-in and drive-thru facilities – would worsen antisocial behaviour in the area and bring noise and vermin to the doorsteps of those living nearby. However, the outlet – off Towngate – was approved by South Ribble Borough Council’s planning committee, which heard that the proposal complied with both local and national planning policy. Members did, however, insist that an acoustic fence was installed to help reduce any disturbance to residents.

Share

Know something we should be covering or featuring in Lancashire? All story tip-offs are welcome to luke@thelead.uk


Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust redundancies loom as £39million of savings needed

The Trust provides mental health services and other community health services across Lancashire and South Cumbria

By Ed Walker

An NHS trust providing mental health services across Lancashire and South Cumbria is in the process of cutting jobs.

The Lancashire Lead can reveal Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust is going through a restructure which affects both clinical and non-clinical staff.

Health bosses at the Walton Summit-headquartered trust have to find a saving of £39million by April 2026 and The Lancashire Lead understands redeployment of staff is being undertaken wherever possible to avoid compulsory redundancies.

The Trust has so far declined to give the exact number of staff at risk of redundancy and how many were likely to leave - describing it only as a ‘small number’.

The Lancashire Lead has been told in some teams one in ten people have been placed at risk and up to 200 jobs could go according to one estimate - there is uncertainty as to exactly how many people will leave due to efforts to redeploy staff. The Trust currently employs more than 7,000 people serving a population of 1.8million across Lancashire and South Cumbria.

Chief executive officer Chris Oliver told The Lancashire Lead: “Like many other NHS organisations both nationally and regionally, we must work within our allocated budgets. As a Trust when we make any decision, including financial efficiencies, we consider the impact on communities, our services and our colleagues.

“Our efficiency target for this financial year is £39 million. Of our total Trust budget, over 70% relates to workforce costs and therefore a significant element of efficiencies will need to come from workforce redesign.

“Our teams have identified a range of service changes - both clinical and non-clinical - to support delivery of the efficiency target which must undergo robust equality and quality impact assessments, approved by our chief medical and chief nursing officers with oversight from our Trust Board. Within some of these changes are workforce reductions.

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to The Lancashire Lead to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 The Lancashire Lead
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture