Hundreds of healthcare assistants at North Tees & Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust and South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have voted for strike action in a row over pay, says UNISON today.
Healthcare assistants at seven sites across the two trusts* are set to walk out unless hospital managers improve an offer on back pay. Across the two trusts, 96% of staff backed strike action.
According to NHS guidance, healthcare assistants on salary band 2 of the Agenda for Change pay scale should only be providing personal care, such as bathing and feeding patients.
However, most of the healthcare assistants have routinely undertaken clinical tasks, such as taking blood, performing electrocardiogram tests and inserting cannulas, says UNISON.
The trusts have accepted staff perform the more complex duties and have offered to move them up to salary band 3. However, they are refusing to fairly compensate the healthcare assistants for their underpaid work and meet the union’s demand of back pay covering the period to 2019.
UNISON Northern regional secretary Clare Williams said: “Healthcare assistants want to continue providing exceptional care to people across Teesside. However, they need to be fairly paid for their work.
“The majority of healthcare assistants have been working well above their salary band for years. It’s time the trusts did the right thing and paid them properly for that work.”
Penny, a healthcare assistant at University Hospital of Hartlepool, said: “Support staff feel they are not respected or rewarded for the work they do. All we are asking for is to be fairly paid for the work we have done. The current offer is simply not good enough.”
Dawn, a healthcare assistant at James Cook University Hospital, said: “The current back pay offer does not adequately compensate healthcare assistants for the years they worked without being paid properly. No one wants to strike, but staff are determined to get what they deserve.”
