JOB losses are on the cards at Taunton's Musgrove Park Hospital despite months of denials by hospital bosses.

In a letter sent out to all staff on Tuesday the chief executive Mike Williams and Mike Slade, chair of the joint staff side trade unions, said: "We are no longer confident that redundancies can be avoided".

The hospital trust has said it needs to save £6.5 million this year and has been undergoing various restructuring to meet this target.

However, the hospital is still £1million short and so has admitted it is now looking at redundancies.

The letter to staff said: "Up to this point, the trust board has taken the view that redundancies could be avoided by holding vacancies and filling gaps created by the turnover of staff.

"Due to a reduction in turnover across the NHS, there are not sufficient vacancies.

"We are no longer confident that redundancies can be avoided.

"The Board has therefore authorised the Cost and Productivity Improvement Group to present plans for savings that could include redundancies."

However, the hospital says it is looking at all the options in order to cut costs.

Chief executive Mike Williams told the County Gazette: "We are still do-ing everything we can to avoid redundancies - developing ideas and a number of projects to both improve the patient experience and increase the hospital's efficiency.

"But staff turnover across the NHS has slowed dramatically and so opportunities for redeployment are not as great as we hoped.

"It is still our ambition to avoid redundancies, but we can no longer guarantee this".

Mike Slade added: "We are committed to working in partnership with the management at the hospital, and felt that the staff had a right to be trusted with this information about the latest position.

"We are not happy with the situation we are in, but believe that our members will get a better outcome if we work together to find solutions to the problems we face."

But the news has come as a bitter pill to staff.

One disgruntled member of staff told the County Gazette: "Manage-ment has obviously decided on savings being made by restructuring, and turnover of staff is not sufficient to produce the required savings.

"We're already having to cope with widespread reorganisation, including some downgrading of jobs.

"This will reduce morale at the hospital even further."

The hospital says it will update staff again in September.

Public sector union Unison has slammed the announcement.

Helen Eccles, Unison regional officer, said: "We have been working in partnership with the trust to address the £6.5million savings that are re-quired.

"Our aim has been to ensure not only minimum impact on staff, but also to maintain the high quality patient services that the staff provide," he stressed.

"Unison was very concerned to receive the news that the trust is now considering possible redundancies.

"We will continue to work with the trust on behalf of our members, including consultation aimed at avoiding redundancies."