ALMOST half of staff - totalling 377 employees - at the South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board are set to leave the organisation after it was revealed they have to slash costs by £31.5m by the end of this year.

The ICB is a statutory NHS organisation responsible for developing a plan to meet the health needs of people in Barnsley and the rest of South Yorkshire.

They manage the NHS budget, as well as arranging for the provision of all NHS health services in the region.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that the government had abolished NHS England - and it has subsequently had a major knock-on effect for ICBs up and down the country.

ICBs have been asked to make 50 per cent cuts to ‘running costs’.

A report, seen by the Chronicle, shows that this means there will be a ‘significant change’ to the role and functions the ICB does.

It said: “Our role will move from the NHS system leader and convenor - however, we will continue to be an active participant in the South Yorkshire health and care system.

“The statutory aim of ICBs remain the same - to improve population health, tackle health inequalities, ensure NHS value and contribute to the wider social and economic development of South Yorkshire.

“We will achieve this through the commissioning of services rather than as a system leader and convenor.”

Currently, the cost of operating the ICB is £61.7m - this will be slashed by more than half before the end of the year, resulting in the loss of a total of 377 employees.

The report added: “The revised operating envelope, based on £18.76 per weighted capitation, is £30.2m.

“This is a 51 per cent or £31.5m reduction to be achieved by the end of December 2025.

“This will mean the current funded establishment of circa 802 whole-time equivalent staff will need to reduce by 377 425.

“At the end of May we submitted a high-level plan to NHSE to deliver the new role within the reduced resourcing.

“We are now developing a detailed organisational structure which will be the basis of our formal consultation with our staff. Implementation will require redundancies, and we are expecting further national guidance on the approach and funding.”

The ICB admits there are some risks to this approach.

“The need to hold the future transferring functions within the new resource envelope may limit available resources, skills and capability to deliver the strategic commissioning function,” the report added.

“Roles and functions transferring to another body - there is a risk that the receiving organisations are not yet ready or don’t yet exist.

“This also presents an employment law legal risk.

“The reduction in operating costs means that some functions where there is no statutory obligation will cease if no receiving body is identified, risking loss of skills and capabilities ahead of the publication of the ten year plan and the corresponding workforce plan.

“There is a risk that constrained funding may mean core statutory functions are not delivered well.”

Gavin Boyle, the CEO of the ICB, said that a consultation process is due to start.

He added: “What they (the government) want the ICB to do is to concentrate solely on strategic commissioning.

"We are having to look at every part of what we do.

"We spend around £61m on running the business of the ICB.

"To reduce that by 50 per cent it goes down to about £30.2m and it's calculated based on weighted population.

"About half of the people will employ will have to go through an organisational change process.

"We were hoping to start a consultation with our staff at the beginning of July but unfortunately we were not able to do that because of a national discussion.

"That weighs heavy on my mind at the moment because there's a lot of people that want to know what it means for them.

"I'm keen to start that as soon as possible."