Some of the lowest-paid staff at Prospect Park Hospital in Reading are taking strike action in a dispute about pay. The strike is over their employer ISS’s refusal to pay the workers a lump sum worth at least £1,655, which has already been given to hundreds of thousands of people employed directly by the NHS. […]
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Government must remove charge for all healthcare settings
UNISON and other health unions say NHS must continue to operate a safety-first approach
Isle of Wight Health Branch Secretary, Jay Chappell, has returned to the frontline during Covid-19. He told us a bit about his new ‘normal’ during the crisis. “Normally I have full time release as the chair of staff side and branch secretary. Since Covid-19 hit, normal business kind of stopped as you would expect. Social […]
Advice published to reassure staff and public but alert them on need for vigilance
In the South East region South Central Ambulance Service spent £19m over the past financial year on private emergency services, with South East Coast Ambulance Service spending around £6m a year
It’s nothing short of a tragedy that huge amounts of time and resources have been wasted.
This week marked a whole year since the country went into lockdown as COVID-19 surged across the UK. In that year, we have seen the government repeatedly mismanage the situation, ignoring the Govt advisory group SAGE warnings until they had no option but to act. Over 126,000 lives have been lost. As the nation fell […]
As we look forward to brighter days where our lives are no longer dominated by COVID, we will be picking up the pieces for many years to come
Health branches across the region took part in two days of campaigning on Thursday and Friday, to ask the government for early action on NHS pay. Branches used social media and took part in socially distanced events to press home the message that health workers deserve much more than applause for their efforts during the […]
An early pay rise of at least £2,000 to every NHS worker is needed
Unions agree measures to be applied locally
Responding to Labour leader Keir Starmer’s proposal at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday (Wednesday) that health and care staff should be exempted from the immigration health surcharge, UNISON South East regional secretary Steve Torrance said: “Dealing with the pandemic has shown more than ever how NHS and care services rely on staff from overseas. It beggars belief that […]
We hear from Rebecca Storer, a Health Care Assistant (HCA) and UNISON member at University Hospital Southampton, on what it’s been like working through the Covid-19 crisis, and how the crisis has led to innovations in PPE. I’ve worked as an HCA in the Acute Medical Unit (AMU) at University Hospital Southampton for almost two years. We look after patients arriving from the Emergency […]
Updated rules reflect changing threat The UK Government and NHS leaders from a range of medical and nursing royal colleges have published new guidance about personal protective equipment (PPE) for NHS teams who are likely to come into contact with patients with coronavirus. The guidance has been agreed by the four Chief Medical Officers, Chief […]