STANDARD Life's Bournemouth-based Healthcare operation is expected to escape the 1,000 job cuts threatened across the group.

The Richmond Hill firm is still "actively recruiting", having taken on 100 staff since April 2006.

Standard Life Healthcare chief executive Mike Hall said: "We expect future growth and natural turnover over the next three years. Involuntary redundancies will be kept to a minimum.

"Standard Life Healthcare has posted an exceptionally strong set of results and it's a real credit to all of our people.

"Profit has increased to £12 million, a 200 per cent increase on 2005 which is particularly pleasing in a very competitive market."

Parent group Standard Life yesterday announced cost-cutting of £100 million by 2009 - equating to 1,000 job roles across the company. Trade union Amicus national officer David Fleming said: "This is all about profit for the shareholders at the expense of a very loyal workforce."

Amicus does not traditionally have a large presence at Standard Life, but the union said that since the firm announced plans to cut the final salary pension scheme, at least 1,000 staff had become members. In its first set of annual results as a listed company, Standard Life yesterday posted operating profits of £614 million, an increase of 55 per cent on a year earlier and much higher than expected by analysts.