Union’s warning over pressure on staff

THE union UNISON has warned the Government needs to listen to frontline NHS staff and provide funding and support to help deal with the “severe pressures” healthcare workers face.

And the union has warned that a “quick Omicron fix” is not good enough, with a top North East figure highlighting how staff are under severe strain which predates the Covid-19 pandemic.

Over the week to January 12, the union conducted a “snapshot” investigation of how staff were coping at 40 NHS trusts across the country – including in our region. The result “paints a worrying picture”, UNISON said.

Accounts highlighted how NHS bosses had been forced to “chase staff off sick to return early, directing those on wards to send patients home more quickly and asking exhausted employees to cancel annual leave, as well as taking on extra shifts too”.

The union said NHS staff had suggested “these stopgap initiatives” were helping a little, but that “much more” support was necessary.

UNISON head of health Sara Gorton said: “The NHS has been running on empty for years. Never again must the pleas from staff, employers and unions for urgent action on staffing numbers be ignored.”

The union’s regional secretary Clare Williams added: “What we know – and what we have been telling the Government – is that there are severe staffing pressures and a serious workforce crisis in the NHS.

“That’s down to a number of factors that Covid and the winter have underlined, but staffing numbers were under pressure even before the pandemic.”