Healthcare assistants (HCAs) and other support workers, some of the lowest paid workers in the NHS, have continued their campaign to be properly paid for working beyond their pay grade, with a new wave of strike action through the summer months.
At Surrey and Sussex Healthcare Trust more than 350 nursing assistants took part in strikes at the beginning of August and at the University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) NHS Trust, health care assistants (HCAs) at three hospitals began a 26-day strike on Monday 5th August, which runs until the end of August. In the South West a dispute continues at the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, and at the end of July maternity support workers in Grimsby began a 48-hour strike.
The strikes are part of UNISON’s campaign for fair pay for support workers – #PayFairforPatientCare – which began in the North West some years ago.
The UNISON campaign revolves around the re-banding of HCAs on salary band 2, which according to the NHS’s Agenda for Change pay scale should only be providing personal care, such as bathing and feeding patients.
UNISON has said most HCAs routinely undertake clinical tasks normally done by those on band 3, such as taking blood, performing electrocardiogram (ECG) tests, and inserting cannulas. The campaign wants healthcare support workers to be rebanded and paid back pay for the years of work they carried out above their pay grade, which could be as far back as 2017/18.
Full story in The Lowdown, 12 August 2024