Updated: Trust quote added and London Health Emergency response.

Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust is slashing at least 30 jobs as it struggles to cut £30m from its budget.

The trust has informed staff that 30 non-clinical managerial and administrative posts to make a saving of £600,000.

The trust has also warned there may be further job losses as a result of the trust 'sharing services' with other hospital trusts.

The savings made by the redundancies will only scratch the surface of the £20m the trust still needs to cut from its budget.

Current forecasts show the trust will only have managed to save only £10m of the £30m cuts it needs to made by next April.

Staff were informed of the redundancies on Thursday last week Chief Executive Samantha Jones said: “I am bitterly disappointed that we are in this position and my heart goes out to those staff who are affected.”

A Trust spokesman said: "To make sure we are getting best value for taxpayers' money, we have undertaken a detailed review of staff roles to remove duplication and to ensure we are making best use of information technology.

"As a result, we launched a consultation with our staff unions last Wednesday to make up to 30 non-clinical managerial and administrative roles redundant.

"However, we are confident that we should be able to find most, if not all, of those staff affected suitable alternative employment within the Trust by filling roles which are currently vacant or covered by agency staff."

London Health Emergency chairman Geoff Martin said: “The job cuts at Epsom and St Helier are compulsory redundancies that are very much the tip of the iceberg. We knowthat recruitment freezes have been smuggled in at Trust’s across the capital leaving hospitals desperately short of staff and pushing us to the edge of the worse winter NHS crisis in a generation.

"These cuts nail the lie that the NHS has been exempted from the Government public spending assault – in fact the NHS is right in the front line and piecemeal cuts are being bulldozed through the length and breadth of the health service. “Local communities will need to unite to fight the health cuts alongside other services at the sharp end or watch while staffing and bed numbers are slashed back to lethally inadequate levels.”

Have you been affected? Get in touch by calling 020 8330 9544 or emailing cfox@gmail.com.