NHS workers in Essex and Suffolk vote for further strike action over pay

More than 300 staff at an NHS trust have voted to strike after years of feeling they had been “ripped off”.

A UNISON spokesman said health workers from the East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) working in Colchester and Ipswich had supported the measure in an official vote.

The vote came after years of not receiving full pay for work, claimed Sam Older, UNISON’s Eastern regional organiser.

Nick Hulme, CEO of ESNEFT, said: “We greatly value our healthcare workers and the work they do every day to help patients and staff in our hospitals.”

The staff were hired at pay band 2 of the NHS Agenda for Change pay scale, meaning they only carry out personal care tasks such as bathing or feeding patients, a UNISON spokesman said.

However, staff performed clinical tasks such as inserting cannulas, performing electrocardiograms (ECGs) or taking blood samples, which should be paid at salary level 3, the spokesman added.

UNISON said the trust had placed workers in the higher pay band, which means almost £2,000 more a year for experienced staff, but had failed to adequately compensate workers for the years they worked above their pay band.

UNISON members said they would prefer to avoid industrial action and wrote letters to managers urging them to urge the trust to negotiate an improved deal.

Sam Older, UNISON’s regional organiser for the East, said: “These frontline healthcare workers are committed to providing exceptional care to their patients.

“But the trust has been abusing their goodwill for years to obtain cheap care.

“They have tried to negotiate a fair deal for months, but the top managers refuse to pay for it.”

He added that employees were tired of not getting enough money.

Mr Hulme said the Trust values ​​its healthcare support staff.

“We have worked closely with our union colleagues for two years to implement changes following a national review of the job descriptions of healthcare support workers at pay levels two and three,” he said.

“This includes the amount of back pay to which colleagues are entitled. Although the Trust’s preliminary offer was accepted by other unions, this offer was rejected by Unison.

“We have been working actively with Unison since then, supported by their Advisory, Mediation and Arbitration Service, to resolve the back payment issue.

“We had hoped to reach a consensual position following these discussions, which we understood would be Unison’s recommendation to its members to avoid industrial action.

“We have never left the negotiating table and hope to quickly find a solution with our Unison colleagues.”