HCAs vote to strike as national pay campaign continues
The latest in a series of healthcare assistant (HCA) strikes has been called at an NHS trust in the East of England.
Hundreds of HCAs at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust voted to strike over a dispute regarding pay banding and back pay, their union, Unison, announced on Tuesday (2 July).
“The trust has been exploiting their goodwill for years to get care on the cheap”
Sam Older
According to Unison, support staff working at band 2 of the Agenda for Change pay scale should only be performing personal care tasks, including feeding, cleaning, re-adjusting and bathing patients.
However, many HCAs at the trust have been on band 2 for years while performing some duties of a band 3 worker, such as cannula insertion, electrocardiogram (ECG) tests and taking bloods.
The workers have therefore demanded an increase in their banding and back pay for the years they spent performing these additional duties.
The dispute is part of a national campaign, Fair Pay for Patient Care, by Unison to up-band HCAs, also known as healthcare support workers or nursing support workers, for having performed certain duties they have performed which are above their pay grade and win them back pay settlements.
Unison said the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust had agreed to up-band the workers, but that its offer of backdating pay to April 2021 was insufficient.
It argued that backdating pay further could avert strike action as, elsewhere, trusts have agreed back pay deals to as far back as April 2018.
Sam Older, an organiser for Unison Eastern, said workers were “fed up of being shortchanged” and called on the trust to return to the negotiating table.
Unison Eastern organiser Sam Older
“These healthcare support workers are dedicated to providing exceptional care to their patients,” Mr Older said.
“But the trust has been exploiting their goodwill for years to get care on the cheap.
“They’ve tried to get a fair deal through months of negotiations, yet senior managers are refusing to put their hands in their pockets.”
Mr Older added that the recent breakdown in negotiations left the HCAs with “no choice” but to go on strike, a decision 96% of local members voted in favour of.
Strike dates have yet to be confirmed.
Unison said the move from band 2 to 3 is worth almost £2,000 a year to more senior HCAs.
HCAs employed by University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust walked out in June, also as part of Unison’s campaign, with strike dates at Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust now confirmed for later this month.
East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust has been contacted for comment.
