Crunch talks as hospitals healthcare support staff prepare for weeks of strike action
Unison and the chief executive of the county’s hospital trust will sit down today about a long running fight for back pay
By Sarah Ward
Crunch talks are happening today ahead of strike action which could see hundreds of hospital health care workers walk out over a dispute about back pay.
Unless the long running issue can be resolved, Unison members in Northamptonshire will walk out of their job next week and continue their strike action until the end of the month.
The pressure is on chief executive Richard Mitchell of University Hospitals of Northamptonshire group - which runs Kettering and Northampton general hospitals - to avert the action, which will undoubtedly have an impact on the running of the organisations, which are already saddled with colossal waiting lists and are over capacity in their accident and emergency departments.
The employment dispute is over the issue of support staff performing clinical duties above their pay band for many years. Unison has secured a rebanding for future work, but its members are now demanding the back pay (of up to six years) they are entitled to as part of their employment contracts.
Whereas many trusts across the country have settled, the offer for Northamptonshire staff stands at two and a half years, an improvement on the two months first offered, but the members have decided to fight for their full entitlement.
Unison has accused the hospital bosses of ‘intransigence and failure to address legitimate claims for back pay.’
This week Unison put out a statement, citing a healthcare support worker, who did not want to be identified.
They said:
“I’m at a loss to understand why the Trust is being so intransigent, the NHS has settled the same dispute elsewhere in the UK, such as Bedford Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, who recently paid healthcare support workers what they were entitled to, back to August 2019.
“It just feels like our Trust simply doesn’t care about frontline staff and fails to recognise our contribution.
“During COVID, I put my job and my patients above myself and my family. I only asked what my patients needed, and now the Trust has turned me out on the street to fight for money I have rightfully earned."
Gareth Eales, UNISON East Midlands head of health said:
“We have listened to our members - none of us want these strikes - but the way HCSWs are being treated simply isn’t fair. We want meaningful negotiations. Let’s get around the table and resolve this dispute with a deal that isn’t insulting to UNISON members who have been knowingly and systematically underpaid and undervalued for years.”
The union says that for years its healthcare support worker members have been performing additional clinical duties above their caring role, such as taking blood, conducting patient observations, performing complex procedures like ECGs, and assisting in childbirth.
Unison put in a formal pay claim in October last year, followed by a collective grievance in January signed by more than 700 Northants members. In response the trust rebanded the job to a band three, with effect from April. After the issue of back pay compensation was not resolved the members decided in May to take strike action.
The scheduled strike, which follows on from earlier action in recent months, will involve hundreds of healthcare assistants, maternity support workers, theatre support workers, and other clinical support workers.
The hospital trust told NN Journal talks were happening today and would give a comment and answer our questions after the discussions had happened.
Maybe Rosie Wrighting MP with her experience with Unison can sort this out at her meeting with the Health Secretary over the re-build of KGH .
The abuse of the lowest grade staff is disgusting and it happens across the sectors. All due to the failings of the local NHS and its inability to be honest about it. Carers in care homes are huge amounts of nursing care now even tho they don’t get paid as nurses or HCA’s. If they get it wrong the homes lose ratings. But social care care staff are equally affected as the hospital HCS’s - if not more. They’re picking up a shocking district nurse service (worst I’ve ever known), and they do it in houses on their own. Yet they have to use food banks. Shocking abuse.