AROUND 1,000 jobs could be axed at the trust which runs Bury’s Fairfield Hospital.

Staff at Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust were told on Friday around 10 per cent of the workforce could be lost.

The trust, which covers four Greater Manchester hospitals including Fairfield, will have to save £45m this year.

But that could rise once it knows the services GPs want to commission.

Chief executive John Saxby said he hoped to avoid compulsory redundancies.

He said: “Even for a large organisation like this, with an operating budget of over half a billion pounds, this level of savings cannot be achieved by cutting out waste or reducing our non-pay expenditure alone.

“I believe it is right for the trust to consider all options in its efforts to reduce costs and work more efficiently so we can provide safe, high quality, reliable and sustainable services through this economic downturn and beyond.

"We are, therefore, informing our trade unions of our need to reduce posts across the trust by a significant number during 2011-12 and we are also affirming our commitment to work through the impact of that with them."