§ Mr. LansleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many staff have been made redundant in the NHS as a consequence of the reorganisation of area health authorities into strategic health authorities. [117191]
§ Mr. HuttonOver 20,000 staff from health authorities and regional offices of the Department of Health transferred employment into primary care trusts and new strategic health authorities on 1 April 2002. In order to minimise redundancies and to ensure that valuable skills are not lost to the national health service all staff were guaranteed employment for a 12-month period ending 31 March 2003. At the end of this period 234 staff had been unable to find a suitable post and were made redundant and/or took early retirement.