HOSPITAL beds will be lost as the Government slashes nursing, midwifery and doctors’ jobs, claims a healthcare expert.

Peter Bradshaw, emeritus professor of health service policy at Huddersfield University, has spoken out following a survey reporting that 50,000 jobs will disappear from the NHS.

The report, by the union-funded website False Economy, revealed that in England alone, 24,000 posts will be lost in hospitals, another 10,000 will go in primary care trusts and 6,000 will disappear from mental health trusts.

Prof Bradshaw said it will be nurses’ jobs that will go first, undermining the Government pledges to protect frontline services.

He said: “First to go will be the nurses then midwives and then eventually the doctors.

“If we lose these staff we will have to close down facilities because we simply won’t be able to staff them.

“The other consequence of not having enough staff is that there will be too much work for the people who are still there and that will impact on standards of care.” Prof Bradshaw said NHS trusts in Kirklees and Calderdale were among the most “robust”.

He said: “Here we have fairly robust financial circumstances and we are as fortunate as we can be to deal with the cuts.

“But it will be very different in the Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust which covers Dewsbury, Wakefield and Pontefract.

“The Government has just had to bail them out – the weaker trusts are going to suffer the most.”

Prof Bradshaw said the Tory-led Government’s aim to privatise the NHS signals an end to a health service which has been free to everyone.

He said: “What used to be a service run on the basis of altruism will instead be run on productivity and by what the market dictates.

“And private companies won’t want to run A&E departments, intensive care and maternity wards because they’re too risky and not profitable enough so frontline services will suffer.”