HEALTH bosses have assured frontline services will not be affected with the potential loss of nearly 250 temporary jobs from the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service.

However unions still fear clinical positions are at risk of being axed, and say if that is the case, cost savings need to be found elsewhere.

The health service was this week revealed at a budget estimates hearing to be $20 million in the red.

A total 247 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions are to be targeted over the next year, however the service’s interim chief executive Clare Douglas told the hearing these would be mainly temporary contract services.

She later told the hearing among the jobs to be cut would be positions known as nurse “specials”.

Nurse specials are extra nurses brought in on a casual basis for high acuity patients.

Ms Douglas assured no frontline services would be cut, saying the nurse specials would continue to be on the health service’s casual pool.

She said the majority of the positions being looked for FTE reductions were temporary roles in place to deliver projects such as the Digital Hospital program.

The program removes the need for paper records and charts, allowing staff to see patient information across a number of wards and facilities.

“As these projects are completed, these positions will cease,’’ Ms Douglas said.

“Most staff have permanent roles to return to. There are no redundancies associated with this reduction.”

She said while the anticipated budget shortfall was $20 million, they would be using retained earnings of $16.1 million, so the end deficit would be $5.9 million.

Together Union’s Cairns health representative Dr Sandy Donald said the union was concerned about the lack of detail about the cuts.

He did not believe there were nearly 250 FTE positions associated with the Digital Hospital program, and was worried staff from clinical areas could be targeted.

“We’re always a bit concerned when we see mention of ‘nurse specials’ because they tried that once before and it was a disaster,’’ he said.

Health Minister Cameron Dick said the budget papers showed that by the end of 2016-17, CHHHS would have 589 more FTE staff than planned in the LNP’s last budget.