"displaced" from job - advice needed please!

I work for the NHS. My department is being restructured and my job no longer exists in the new structure. Instead of being a whole job on one site, the responsibilities are being divided between two posts, each working across two sites. I have been "displaced" because my job no longer exists. The other posts are a band lower and if I'm successful in getting one (it's a bit of a free-for-all at the mo) then I stand to lose not only my status, but 22% of my salary.
The pay protection policy has not been through an assurance process and is in dispute with the Unions since they had an existing agreement, made in partnership, which protected salaries for 5 years. The current policy only protects it for 2 years.
The HR representative has stated that she expects that people in this lower banded job will be working at the higher band anyway, "because they would want to". She is obviously in cloud cuckoo land.
I am worn out with the stress of all this and I basically want to know if I am effectively being made redundant because of the 22% loss of income and the loss of status, and if so, is it worth taking this to an IT?

I'm afraid not. Even the two years pat protection would destroy your claim. Basically, as soon as pay protection enters the ring, then there is no chance of a successful claim at a tribunal. Your employer may be willing to offer redundancy as an alternative, but they do not have to do so. However, since all of this is being driven by Government cuts in the public sector, if they have too many people chasing too few jobs they may be willing to take volunteers for redundancy. If not, I am afriad that you are stuck.

So basically, I'm going to have to take one of these other posts if it's offered, or muck up the interview inadvertently and be put "at risk", see if there's other suitable alternative employment on the same grade I'm on now - which is unlikely unless they hive me off into a corporate post (which is also unlikely because I'm not a yes-person) - and if there isn't, then be made redundant? They did have voluntary severance at one point last year, but the money wasn't as good as a redundancy package would be, so I'm not opting for that unless I've really got no alternative.
Is it true that any redundancy payment comes off your pension lump sum?

I cannot answer questions about pension arrangements as I don't deal with advice on pensions and know nothing about them. However, if I understand the question correctly, you are suggesting that redundancy payments are deducted from accrued pension rights - this would not be correct. Redundancy obviously has a link to pensions since stopping employment impcats on pension accrual, but it is not the case that you pay for your own redundancy.

Other than that, yes, you are pretty much correct that those are your options. I am not entirely sure what you mean by "They did have voluntary severance at one point last year, but the money wasn't as good as a redundancy package would..." - voluntary severence and voluntary redundancy are the same thing, and the package for voluntary severence is the redundancy package. Perhaps you mean that the terms are not enhanced? In which case I am afraid that this is now the public sector world, and very few people are getting any form of enhanced payments, because there simply isn't the money available to pay for them. Many public sector agencies could afford to pay enhanced terms in the past solely because redundancies were a rare circumstance, and one way or another any "surplus workforce" could be absorbed. That is now not the case when public services are facing thousands of redundancies every year for the foreseeable future. In fact, although you may not appreciate it from your perspective, you are firtunate in that the redeployment policies and pay protection policies which you are facing are significantly higher than many other public sector agencies - most of them, for example, started off with two years pay protection, and all of that is rapidly being stripped away, along with redeployment policies. At least with two years pay protection - assuming that is the future policy - you have some measure of a safety yet and the time to find work which may better suit your aspirations. Right now many other public sector employees are facing the loss of their employment within 2/3 months. It may not be any consolation for you, but things could be a lot worse.

Thanks for your information and advice.