By Sarah Garrod.
The government has rejected advice to cut 137,000 jobs, one in ten, from the NHS in England.
The Department of Health said it accepted efficiency savings were needed but not via the jobs cuts advocated by consultancy firm McKinsey and Company.
The confidential report was leaked to the Health Service Journal, prompting opposition parties to accuse the government of 'not being straight' with voters over the NHS.
But health minister Mike O'Brien said: 'Ministers have rejected the suggested proposals in the McKinsey report and there are no plans to adopt these proposals in the future.
'The government does not believe the right answer to improving the NHS now or in the future is to cut the NHS workforce.
'In core frontline services like maternity, nursing and primary care we need more staff rather than fewer.'
The HSJ said the report made it clear the staff cuts needed to be made as much among clinical staff as administrators. One of the recommendations in the report was to reduce medical school places, starting in October.
The cuts would be necessary, the report said, to meet planned £20 billion efficiency savings by 2014.
Responding to the story shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: 'Yet again Labour ministers are failing to be straight with the British people.
'Andy Burnham promised to protect the NHS, but now we find out that his department has been drawing up secret plans for swingeing cuts.
'Clearly we need to get better value for money from the NHS, so we applaud any drive for greater efficiency, but it is extraordinary that Labour plan to take an axe to the hospital budget rather than to the bloated health bureaucracy.
'Only a fifth of job cuts would be within the bureaucracy, meaning the vast majority to go would be frontline NHS staff.'
The HSJ said the report outlined a range of 'potential actions in the next six months', including a recruitment freeze starting in the next two years, a reduction in medical school places starting in October and an early retirement programme to encourage older GPs and community nurses to make way for 'new blood/talent'.
The HSJ claims the analysis was presented to the DoH in March this year, with the report bearing the department's logo and has been disseminated among senior NHS managers.
Asked whether the report concurred with the department's own analysis and policy, health minister Mike O'Brien said McKinsey's work was 'not in any sense an NHS plan of action' but the consultants' suggestions 'will be looked at', according to the HSJ.
Some of the ways the report outlined costs could be reduced included improving the productivity of some staff, reducing procedures with limited clinical benefits such as come hysterectomies and it also said nearly 40 per cent of patients in a typical hospital do not need to be there at any one time.
The government has rejected advice to cut 137,000 jobs, one in ten, from the NHS in England.
The Department of Health said it accepted efficiency savings were needed but not via the jobs cuts advocated by consultancy firm McKinsey and Company.
The confidential report was leaked to the Health Service Journal, prompting opposition parties to accuse the government of 'not being straight' with voters over the NHS.
But health minister Mike O'Brien said: 'Ministers have rejected the suggested proposals in the McKinsey report and there are no plans to adopt these proposals in the future.
'The government does not believe the right answer to improving the NHS now or in the future is to cut the NHS workforce.
'In core frontline services like maternity, nursing and primary care we need more staff rather than fewer.'
The HSJ said the report made it clear the staff cuts needed to be made as much among clinical staff as administrators. One of the recommendations in the report was to reduce medical school places, starting in October.
The cuts would be necessary, the report said, to meet planned £20 billion efficiency savings by 2014.
Responding to the story shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: 'Yet again Labour ministers are failing to be straight with the British people.
'Andy Burnham promised to protect the NHS, but now we find out that his department has been drawing up secret plans for swingeing cuts.
'Clearly we need to get better value for money from the NHS, so we applaud any drive for greater efficiency, but it is extraordinary that Labour plan to take an axe to the hospital budget rather than to the bloated health bureaucracy.
'Only a fifth of job cuts would be within the bureaucracy, meaning the vast majority to go would be frontline NHS staff.'
The HSJ said the report outlined a range of 'potential actions in the next six months', including a recruitment freeze starting in the next two years, a reduction in medical school places starting in October and an early retirement programme to encourage older GPs and community nurses to make way for 'new blood/talent'.
The HSJ claims the analysis was presented to the DoH in March this year, with the report bearing the department's logo and has been disseminated among senior NHS managers.
Asked whether the report concurred with the department's own analysis and policy, health minister Mike O'Brien said McKinsey's work was 'not in any sense an NHS plan of action' but the consultants' suggestions 'will be looked at', according to the HSJ.
Some of the ways the report outlined costs could be reduced included improving the productivity of some staff, reducing procedures with limited clinical benefits such as come hysterectomies and it also said nearly 40 per cent of patients in a typical hospital do not need to be there at any one time.
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