MANAGEMENT jobs and experienced health professionals could be lost as an East Lancashire health trust looks to make cuts of £46million.

Plans to make savings at NHS East Lancashire are still at an embryonic stage but finance director Chris Dixon has warned there can be 'no sacred cows' in terms of meeting anticipated budget targets.

Several areas will be examined as the trust ponders a ‘best case scenario’ of reducing its core budget by £46million, including decomissioning services, reviewing existing contracts and redesigning individual units.

But already a ‘value for money’ steering group set up by the NHS body has identified more than £700,000 in potential cutbacks in management and administration costs.

Further talks are planned over another £30million worth of trust work which could be reconfigured, to save money.

Another initiative is being trialled, a voluntary severance scheme, which could also have a limited effect on staffing costs.

The trust, with the severance scheme, is also looking to identify vacancies where posts do not need to be replaced or can be filled from redeployees from elsewhere in the organisation.

Personnel head Janet Whitworth has said that this will only apply to those posts where annual savings of £17,000 could be made.

Only those with at least two years service could apply for the scheme and the maximum they could qualify for, in payout terms, would be 30 weeks.

Chris DIxon, finance director, said that the scale of the cuts was the most severe had he experienced within the NHS.

“There are no sacred cows here and we have to be aware of that fact,” he added.

Trust chairman Kathy Reade added: “This is not an option. We have to deliver whatever is asked of us here.”

The trust is also being to ensure it can deliver a balanced budget plus two per cent extra efficiencies for 2010-11.