UNION bosses fear that up to 600 jobs may be lost as Calderstones Hospital is transferred to a Merseyside NHS trust and are calling for an 11th-hour rethink.

Some 900 workers are set to officially transfer from the Whalley-based learning disabilities trust to Mersey Care, which also manages the Rampton high-security hospital, from today.

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Unison chiefs say the move has been shrouded in uncertainty with no firm plans yet emerging over where medium-secure unit patients at Calderstones will end up.

Board members at Mersey Care have provisionally agreed the switch, subject to three-year transitional funding being approved and indemnities being offered against any redundancy costs.

Calderstones chief executive Mark Hindle is transferring over to Mersey Care as executive operations director.

A union boss has questioned why the Whalley site’s £7 million low-secure and personality-disorder unit, only opened in 2013, and the 36-bed medium-secure Woodview unit, costing £10 million and finished four years earlier, should be mothballed.

Tim Ellis, Unison’s regional organiser, said the process, if it involves patients mov- ing out of Calderstones, is unfair on service users.

He said: “It will be very hard to replicate the high-quality team of NHS staff at Calderstones in new locations.

“Because of the uncertainty about the future of the site, the trust is having increasing difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff.

“This is leading to posts being left vacant and wards having to be merged. Staff do not know if they have a secure job or where they will be based in two years’ time.

“To keep the service at Calderstones functioning, to make best use of their excellent facilities, and to avoid disruption for vulnerable people, we are urging Mersey Care and NHS England to rethink the plan to close the site and commit to its future.”

A Calderstones NHS spokesman said: “The acquisition is a positive step forward with two Care Quality Commission good- rated organisations coming together to deliver the very best clinical and forensic care.”

Mersey Care would not comment on the union claims ahead of the transfer.

NHS England was unavailable for comment last night.