Healthcare workers have been guaranteed a role until June next year in the wake of a shake-up which will see the number of primary care trusts in the district cut from four to one.
Yesterday Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt announced that from October 1, Airedale, North Bradford, South and West and City Primary Care Trusts will cease to exist.
They will be replaced with a single organisation called Bradford and Airedale Teaching Primary Care Trust, which will be responsible for all community healthcare services in the district such as GPs, dentists, pharmacies, community hospitals and health visiting.
The changes are aimed at reducing by at least 15 per cent management and administrative costs and to improve co-ordination with social services by having the same local government boundaries.
The changes will see the number of PCTs in the region slashed from 15 to five, West Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority merge with others to become Yorkshire and Humber Strategic Health Authority and West Yorkshire Metropolitan Ambulance Service merge with others to become Yorkshire Ambulance Services NHS Trust.
The changes will deliver savings of £13.2 million in West Yorkshire which health bosses say will be channelled back into cancer and palliative care services.
Matt Walsh, joint transitional programme director and former acting chief executive of Bradford South and West Primary Care Trust, said: "Creating a new organisation will involve a restructure and mean changes to the way some staff work.
"We are committed to minimising redundancies via natural wastage and redeployment to ensure that the valuable skills and experience of our existing staff are retained.
"Working in partnership with staff and union representatives, consultation is taking place and all PCT employees have a guaranteed role until June 2007."
Steve Hoyland, regional officer for Unison, said there was a nationally agreed human resources framework in place for the changes.
"The intention is every NHS organisation in the district has to offer vacancies to people displaced in the SHA or the PCTs," he said.
e-mail: claire.lomax @bradford.newsquest.co.uk
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article