UNION leaders have slammed hospital bosses' decision to put 127 jobs at risk as part of a savings programme.

The potential cuts come as the East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust aims to save £15.6million in 2007/08 - £2 to £4million needs to come from wage bill savings.

Union leaders are furious that the trust is axing staff while paying out £20million annually in interest to pay for the new privately-financed Royal Blackb-urn Hospital and significant extensions at Burnley General.

But hospital chiefs insist they have reviewed their workforce needs and are overstaffed at senior administrative and managerial grades compared to other trusts.

Sixty people, mainly managers and admin-istrative staff, have been told that they are at risk of being made redundant. Another 67 workers, across 32 positions, have also been informed that they could potentially be made redundant as part of the programme.

But officials are confident that these workers can be redeployed in other roles across the trust.

Tim Ellis, Unison regional officer, said: "It is a tragedy for the NHS that they have to pay people to leave the service when in East Lancashire they are paying £20million to private contractors at exorbitant rates of interest, for new hospital buildings. The NHS has spent millions training up these people and now it will spend millions getting rid of them."

Mr Ellis said Unison would fight any plans to impose compulsory redundancies on staff and called on management to seek volunteers before job losses were enforced.

The consultation process for the 60 worst-hit workers will last for three months. Redeployment for the remaining 67, if successful, should take between three and six months.

Referring to the 60 worst-hit staff, a trust spokesman said: "Although the trust will be working hard to redeploy these individuals, experience to date suggests that staff currently holding these roles may be difficult to redeploy."

Hospitals chief executive Jo Cubbon said: "Clearly we have done and will continue to do everything we can to avoid redundancies."

In a letter to staff she said that for some staff the cuts will come as a second blow as it affects "10 roles who have been through the redeployment process in 2006/07."

John Amos, chairman of East Lancashire's Public and Inform-ation Forum, said: "Our concern is that it does not affect the quality of patient care.

"If the concentration of job losses is in administrative then that would be where we would hope the losses would occur, rather than on the nursing care side."

Talks and presentations are being held at hospital sites in Blackburn, Burnley, Rossendale and Pendle with staff representatives and health unions today and tomorrow.

Last year the trust, then forced to save £11.6million, avoided large-scale redundancies with a wide-ranging redeployment exercise.