UNION leaders believe proposed hospital red-undancies have evolved into a battle of "staff versus cash".

Unison and The Royal College of Nursing have teamed up to make the comments in an open letter to Jo Cubbon, the chief executive of East Lanca-shire Hospitals NHS Trust.

Trust bosses propose to lay off 60 workers and redeploy 67.

Matrons, physiothera-pists and midwifery managers are facing the axe, alongside hospital admin-istrative and support staff.

In the letter, the unions have called for a clinical assessment of the proposed losses - and steps to minimise the potential effect on patient care.

They also ask the trust to see if more wish to apply to leave on a voluntary basis from other departments.

Unions want to know how much has been spent on consultancy fees during the process, and whether efforts have been made to reduce the spending on agency staff, which is considered by workers to be significant.

Worries have again been expressed about the impact of the Private Finance Initiative funding which saw the construction of the new Royal Blackburn Hospital and an extension to Burnley General Hospital.

With the trust paying out £20 million annually to private investors over the next 30-plus years, the unions says the deal has been signed at credit card' levels of interest.

The letters has been jsigned by Unison's Tim Ellis, Caroline Collins, from the Royal College of Nursing, and the secretary and chairman of the hospital's staff-side association.

It says redundancy plans have "undermined the perceptions of staff and the general public's confidence in the future management of health care.

"Staff versus cash seems to be the order of the day.

"We feel we need to...express the general concern of health staff and...the general public."

An East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust spokesman said: "We welcome the comments made by the staff side organisations and under-stand the concerns that they have highlighted.

"With regard to the point made in the letter that the present redundancy pro-posals will lead to a deterioration of health services' we would like to assure the public that the roles in question have been carefully targeted to make sure they have no direct impact on patient care.

"They are being removed mainly due to duplication or a change in the way the organisation works."