More than £600 million could be spent on NHS redundancies in one year as a result of the Government's controversial reforms, figures have shown.

Estimates from the Department of Health show £616.6 million accounted for in possible redundancy costs for 2011/12.

The health service has already made £195 million of redundancy payments in 2010/11, all of which have been attributed to "the modernisation" of the NHS, documents show.

Total redundancy costs as a result of the Health and Social Care Bill, including cash already spent in 2010/11, are expected to be between £632 million and £989 million, with a Government "best estimate" of £810 million.

Predicted job losses in the NHS - from April 2011 onwards - as a direct result of the reforms, which are still going through Parliament, is 9,100 to 16,800.

Howard Catton, head of policy at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said: "This is at a time when we are having to make cuts to services which are impacting on the frontline.

This is a huge amount of money that could be better spent, not to mention the loss of expertise and organisational memory that will result from this."

The NHS has been told to find up to £20 billion in efficiency savings by 2013/14.

A Department of Health spokesman said the £616.6 million in redundancy costs was accounted for in the total cost for the reforms.

"Our planned cost for NHS reform remains exactly the same as we published in the impact assessment in September 2011," he said.

 "The short term costs are dwarfed by the £4.5 billion we will save over the course of this Parliament and £1.5 billion every year after that."

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: "These eye-watering figures provide clear proof that the Tory-led Government has lost control of its NHS re-organisation."