YEP Says: 65 million reasons to worry about hospitals' future

The news that Leeds Hospital bosses plan to cut over Â£65m from the trust's cloth over the course of this year will likely cause significant concern in the city.

Uppermost in people’s minds will be that the excellent standards of care that so many of us have experienced at Leeds General, St James’ and other centres is not compromised in any way shape or form.

Then there will be understandable worries on the part of the staff – the Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust being one of the city’s biggest employers – about the future of their jobs.

The YEP has been assured that the trust will not be seeking to axe workers from its payroll. Time will tell if that tentatively promised moratorium on headcount reduction is honoured, but those at the very top of the organisation will not be surprised to learn that since this newspaper revealed hospital bosses in this city shelled out almost a quarter of a million pounds laying on taxis for people to get to and from hospital, questions about what is seen in some quarters to be institutional profligacy have quite rightly been asked.