HOSPITAL SURGERY STAFF TO STRIKE OVER
THEATRE staff employed by Warrington And Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WHH) have backed taking industrial action over changes to their terms and conditions that they say could affect patient care.
Nearly 80% of Unite members participated in WHH’s ballot, all of whom voted in favour of strike action in a long-running dispute about rotas and emergency night cover in surgical theatres.
A Unite spokeswoman said members have raised safety concerns over the trust’s proposed rotas such as the removal of a support worker post and changes to the number of professional staff on call on site at night, as well as how staff would be used during the night emergency shift.
She said the changes would also have a significant impact on the pay of some of the staff.
The spokeswoman said the vote showed the ‘depth of anger’ which cannot be ignored.
Unite has called for a negotiated settlement on unresolved issues to end the four-year dispute and avoid industrial action taking place.
The action relates to the Warrington site.
Derek Jones, Unite regional officer, said: “Healthcare workers take their professional duties extremely seriously and industrial action is always a last resort, but the trust management has failed to listen to their concerns for a long time and they had no other option left to them.
“This has caused and continues to cause great stress to our members.
“Yet they have been very concerned from a professional perspective over the proposed loss of key support staff and the reduction of highly skilled professional staff at night providing emergency theatre cover.
“As a professional theatre team, the care of their patients is paramount and after a long and serious contemplation our members felt the only way to refocus the trust’s attention was through an industrial action ballot.
“Staff are keen to find a negotiated resolution but believe they have been given no alternative but to consider strike action to protect their terms and conditions and patient safety.
“We would urge the trust to recognise the strength of feeling of its workers and to find a resolution to the issues in dispute to avoid strike action by theatre staff going ahead.
“We are currently in talks with the management. However, if there is not a speedy resolution to this dispute we will be announcing dates for industrial action in the near future.”
Jan Ross, WHH acting chief operat- ing officer, said: “It is very disappointing that Warrington Hospital’s theatres staff have announced their intention to take industrial action, despite a number of offers made by the trust to avoid such action, including an offer to mediate through ACAS, which has been refused outright.
“The trust is proposing to harmonise the shift patterns, rosters, on-call arrangements for theatres staff in line with NCEPOD guidance.
“Currently there are issues of overstaffing and inequity in pay, which is both unfair and unacceptable.
“There are no patient safety issues related to this action – this is an action purely related to pay and terms and conditions.
“The trust has already conducted a quality impact assessment which provided assurance that the proposed changes to rostering are safe.
“In addition, an external expert was contracted to conduct an independent assessment and this was received earlier this month with the verdict that the proposals were safe.
“Theatres staff have rejected any proposal from the trust that is anything other than ‘maintain status quo’.
“Attempts have been made over the past four years to resolve the inequity in pay and overstaffing issues which has been met each time by significant resistance and lodging of grievances.
“Comprehensive arrangements have been made by the trust to ensure that patients are not affected by this industrial action.”