ALMOST 400 jobs are to go and two hospital wards will close as health chiefs in Southampton struggle to make cuts of £15m.

The Daily Echo can today reveal Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust is planning to axe about 300 admin workers - as well as 50 posts at its HQ and 30 posts in its outpatients services departments.

Two wards will also be closed in a bid to reduce the trust's use of expensive agency nursing staff, although no decision has yet been taken about which ones. Department bosses are meeting with trust directors about how the cuts will be implemented. They have until August 16 to submit detailed plans.

The news has been broken to staff in a letter issued by the trust's communication team. It says: "We are not planning large-scale redundancies, although redundancy will be an 'option of last resort' for some."

The memo explains the trust's current financial recovery plan - implemented after it ended the financial year £5m in the red - is not working fast enough.

This plan has included a partial recruitment freeze, with a policy of only filling half of all vacancies in the past few months.

Now the trust, which runs Southampton General, pictured above, the Princess Anne and Royal South Hants hospitals has put an immediate stop to the use of non-clinical agency staff.

From now on, a maximum of ten new staff a week will be employed across the trust until firmer plans have been put in place.

The memo warns every single post is under review, with plans for a "clearing house" to be set up so some staff can be seconded or redeployed to other jobs, either within the trust or with other local NHS organisations.

News of the proposed jobs losses and ward closures comes just days after Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust was stripped of a star by the Healthcare Commission.

The trust, which now has a two-star rating, was demoted after failing to balance its books last year.