Financial strain and deadlines leading to job losses and closures.

摘要

Nurses in NHS trusts across England face an uncertain future as their employers struggle to meet the deadline to gain foundation status.Since foundation trusts came into being seven years ago, 137 acute and mental health organisations have achieved foundation status giving them greater freedom to shape services. The pressure is on the remaining 89 to become foundation trusts by the government's 2014 deadline.When Labour's health secretary Alan Milburn announced the creation of foundation trusts in 2002, it was in response to managers feeling thattheirability to raise the performance of a trust was often stifled by excessive central bureaucracy.