CLEANERS, caterers, porters, housekeepers and other East Suffolk and North Essex support staff began a new 48-hour strike yesterday, demanding to stay in the NHS.
They want to defend the quality of services they provide to the public as well as their own pay and conditions.
The workers marched from Colchester Hospital on Saturday morning in a fresh wave of strike action, before holding a rally in the city’s Castle Park, saying ‘In house is best.’
It comes amid an increasingly bitter row over East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust’s (ESNEFT) plan to outsource jobs.
ESNEFT said its final decision would not be made until November.
Saturday’s strike action started at 06:00 BST and was due to last 24 hours at Colchester Hospital, as well as at several of ESNEFT’s community sites.
A further 48-hour strike was also planned from 06:00 yesterday (Monday), following 13 days of walkouts having already been staged since the plan was revealed.
Caroline Hennessy, from the public service union Unison, said staff had been ‘overwhelmed’ by support they were receiving from patients and the public.
She added: ‘Patients value cleaners, porters and other facilities staff and know that the services they provide will suffer if they’re sold off to a private company with its shareholders’ interests at heart.’
Hospital support staff from across Essex and Suffolk had written an open letter to the public on September 9th explaining that they had ‘no choice’ but to strike to stop their jobs being sold out of the NHS, says Unison.
In the letter, workers explained the strikes are ‘not about pay’ but about protecting patients.
It read: ‘Private contractors’ main aim is to make a profit. They’ll come after staff wages, sick pay and holidays, and also cut corners on cleaning, food standards and anything else they’re responsible for.’
Strikers also took aim at senior managers at the trust who’ve described the NHS as ‘too compassionate’ towards staff in a leaked document that attempts to justify the outsourcing.
Cleaners, porters, caterers and other non-clinical support workers at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) began five days of strikes last September 10 to stop the outsourcing of soft facilities management services.
The week-long strike last month seriously affected services at Colchester Hospital, where the majority of the threatened jobs are based, and several ESNEFT community sites.
The strikers’ letter continued: ‘We’re proud to be the ones who hold your hand when you’ve got no-one else, offer you a cup of tea in your darkest moments or have a chat to keep your spirits up.
‘But the trust thinks this makes us “too compassionate” and that we’d be better separated out and unable to work as a team with our clinical colleagues.’
The workers concluded: ‘We’re sorry for the disruption but ESNEFT has left us with no choice. We have to do this: for our futures, for the future of our service and for you, our patients.’
Unison Eastern head of health Caroline Hennessy said: ‘ESNEFT facilities staff have consistently made it clear they’d rather be supporting patients than standing on picket lines.
‘But they don’t want to see the quality services they provide sacrificed so a private company can make a profit.
‘If senior managers at ESNEFT want to stop these strikes and look after patients, all they have to do is scrap their nonsensical plans to outsource services.’
Glenn Allen, a chef at Aldeburgh Hospital and one of the signatories to the letter, said: ‘We’ll keep campaigning to stay in the NHS and for the best care for our patients.
‘Neither the trust’s chief executive nor his board seem to care about staff or patients, but we feel like we’re striking to save the integrity of the NHS. We don’t want to be sold off to a company that only cares about profit.’
Meanwhile, Unison last month condemned senior managers at Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust (MSEFT) who have given themselves a discount on the hospital parking charges paid by all other employees.
The trust came under fire earlier this year for reintroducing staff parking charges, with more than 5,000 health workers and patients signing a petition branding the fees a ‘pay cut’.
Staff parking charges were scrapped during the Covid pandemic, and many hospitals across England have continued to offer free parking for their employees, Unison points out.
However, MSEFT decided to bring back staff car park charges in April, setting the annual fees at 0.5% of salaries.
But a new analysis of senior managers’ pay shows that the highest-paid staff at the trust pay as little as 0.27% of their salary. This is because charges are capped at just under £670 a year, says Unison.
It means that the chief executive officer, chief financial officer and other senior staff earning more than £133,464 a year are paying less to park.
