THE man formerly in charge of finance at Basildon Hospital issued a stark warning that patient safety could not be guaranteed if huge funding cuts were imposed.

It was revealed Rick Tazzini, then finance director, warned the board of the Basildon and Thurrock Trust in April that they could not guarantee that patient safety would not be affected by the level of savings being proposed.

The Trust, had been discussing accepting a financial target for 2017/18 which would require them to cut a further £5.5million on top of savings they had already planned.

lt quotes from a leaked memo from Mr Tazzini published in the respected Health Service Journal which claimed: “No costed plans have been prepared, yet, to demonstrate how the additional £5.5million savings could be delivered, or the costs to achieve it. The plan, if it exists, which it doesn’t, is therefore highly speculative.”

Mr Tazzini added: “I do not believe that the board can guarantee that patient safety and experience will not be adversely affected by such deep and unplanned savings. I hope I am wrong.”

Mr. Tazzini is no longer a finance director at Basildon.

The hospital is part of the Mid and South Essex Sustainability and Transformation Plan and the Mid and South Essex Success Regime responsible for reorganising hospital provision between Southend, Basildon and Chelmsford hospitals, which are headed by chief executive Clare Panniker.

The plans are being imposed to tackle a £90million deficit for the three hospitals in 2016/17.

Committee members of the Save Southend NHS campaign said they were concerned about patient safety.

A spokesman said: “The Health Service Journal article is very worrying. It shows that Clare Panniker, now in charge of hospital services for the whole area, is prepared to ride roughshod over concerns about patient safety, even when they are raised within her own board.

“People in Southend should ask themselves if they can trust the officials who make up the Essex Success Regime to look after their interests and we call on our local councillors and MPs to join us in opposing the Mid and South Essex Sustainability and Transformation Plan because it will affect our NHS services and ultimately our safety.”

The plans include creating specialist centres for both emergency care and for elective procedures. Emergency cases would be stabilised at local A&Es before, if necessary, being transferred to specialist centres such as the cardiac care unit at Basildon Hospital. It is estimated only 30 patients a week would need to be transferred to specialist emergency centres.

The campaign spokesman added: “We were recently told that £30million a year would be saved at Southend by the new plans and at the same time that “only a handful’”of patients would be forced to transfer from Southend Hospital to other hospitals if the plans go ahead.

“We do not believe this to be true. If such a significant saving is to be achieved, it will be more than a handful of patients who are forced to transfer for care elsewhere and the services will be undermined.”

Ms Panniker strongly refuted patient safety would be put at risk by the savings.

She said: “All hospitals have to work to a control total set by the NHS. The original control total we were asked to to deliver at Basildon, the board in December 2016 said they couldn’t achieve. It would have mean an £11million increase in savings. By March we were asked if we could deliver £5.5million of additional savings. At that time a new managing director and a new finance director were coming into the trust and there was a great deal of work done to ensure that any additional savings could be delivered without adversely impacting patient quality or safety and a full quality impact was made of those schemes.

“That wasn’t done in March, it was done a bit later, after the finance director had already left the trust so he wouldn’t be aware of that work that happened.”

Ms Panniker added: “The finances of Basildon Hospital have been tracked very closely as have the quality and performance. I’m very clear that as a board, the Basildon board has never made a decision to avoid spending money or to reduce money spent that would have had an impact on quality or safety of patient care.

“Patient safety is our absolute number one priority. It always will come first and our plans are driven by the need and the desire to make services better and safer for patients.”