HUNDREDS of healthcare staff could see their jobs disappear in a radical shake-up of the NHS.

Dorset’s Primary Care Trust (PCT) is to be scrapped by the coalition government.

A total of 491, mostly Dorchester-based managers and administration staff, are employed by its commissioning arm, which will be taken over by a consortium of GPs.

Dorset PCT is one of 152 PCTS around the country being axed in a bid to reduce management costs in the NHS by 45 per cent over the next four years.

The South West Strategic Health Authority (SHA), which employs 272 staff, will also be abolished.

The re-structuring of the NHS was set out in a government White Paper by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.

Mr Lansley said there is no guarantee that PCT staff will find similar jobs in the new system.

A consortium of GPs will take over £70billion of work-commissioning care, which was done by PCTs and SHAs.

More power will be handed over to patients to decide how and where they are treated.

Dr Steve Bick, from the Dorchester Road surgery in Weymouth, said he thinks some of the changes will be positive.

He said: “I think it’s right to reduce the amount of administration because I think we have created too much.

“But it’s a bit of a slash and burn approach because if we become this consortium of GPs then we will have to re-employ people from the PCT because it would involve extra management.”

Giving GPs more input into ways to treat patients would be a good thing, Dr Bick added.

He said: “We’ve had an idea of setting up a deep-vein thrombosis service for patients that will treat them at home or at Weymouth Community Hospital instead of them going to Dorset County Hospital.”

Tanya Palmer, head of house of the South West branch of public sector trade union UNISON, said: “We have huge reservations about this – it means the demise of the NHS as we know it.

“PCTs have already been giving out redundancy notices willy-nilly and we are now looking at 4,000 to 6,000 jobs being lost in the South West.

“If people are losing their jobs, then they’re losing their houses, then issues with their health will happen.”

Paul Sly, NHS Dorset chief executive, said it would be working closely with NHS South West and the Department of Health.

Dr Mike Durkin, medical director at the NHS South West – welcomed the changes.