Striking health workers at the Countess of Chester Hospital are furious the government has rejected a 1% pay rise for the NHS yet MPs will receive a 10% boost.
Hospital workers and ambulance staff took part in the four-hour national strike over pay this morning (Monday October 13) although emergency and critical care was unaffected.
Porters, nurses, occupational therapists, catering and administration staff were among those who gathered outside the Chester hospital and received overwhelming support from the public walking and driving past. Many motorists tooted their horns and one woman even rang her bicycle bell.
Staff, who took action between 7am and 11am, are unhappy after the government rejected the independent Pay Review Body (PRB) recommendation of a 1% pay rise for 2014/15.
But what has angered many is that MPs will get a 10% rise next year, taking their salaries to £74,000, after a recommendation by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.
Community midwife and union representative Helen Harrison is a first time striker as this is the first time in history that the Royal College of Midwives has taken part in industrial action.
She said: “I think the fact the government have disregarded and not accepted advice from our pay review body speaks volumes. They accepted advice from their own review body giving them their nice little 10%!”
She added: “For most of us, we are extremely passionate about what we do and feel very privileged to look after women in labour and bring babies into the world. However, the pressure on the staff, on the labour ward and in the community, there are fewer of us and more and more pressures.”
NHS staff involved in the dispute will take part in “action short of strike” for the rest of the week which, for the midwives, will mean taking breaks and not doing any unpaid overtime.
Porter Dennis Robinson, branch secretary of Unite at the Countess, said: ““MPs are getting 10%. We’re not even getting 1%. Amazing.”
And he stressed the dispute was not against local management who had even supplied the strikers with cups of tea and bacon butties.
“It’s against the government, that’s what we’re striking against, the pay conditions that we’ve had, which are nothing over the last 10 years – about 1% pay rise – and we’ve had enough and it’s about time the government woke up.”
And he warned: “We are more worried now about privatisation coming into the hospitals. That’s another concern of all unions.”
Occupational therapist Beverly Flood, said: “We do the job because we care about patients. We don’t do the job for money. But lately we have not been keeping up with the cost of living, it doesn’t seem fair – the cost of rent, cost of food – and our wages are just not keeping up with it.”
NHS staff have been offered a two-year deal in which staff at the top of their pay band will receive 1%, but those due incremental pay awards get no further rise. In addition, the 1% increase is non-consolidated, meaning it will not count towards pension entitlements or shift pay and may not be permanent.
Raphael Parkinson, area organiser for Unison, said: “We want to send a clear message to the government that they need to treat all workers fairly. There’s a general election next year and workers have got a very long memory so our members will do what they need to do at the general election.”
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC this morning: “The bottom line is very simple. I have had clear advice, analysis, that says that if I accepted the pay review recommendation, NHS managers would lay off around 4,000 nurses next year and around 10,000 nurses the year after that. The NHS has just come through a very difficult period with the tragedy over Mid Staffs and responding to that magnificently we have now got 5,000 more nurses on our hospital wards in just one year.
“So hospitals are recruiting nurses like crazy at the moment and this would put that into reverse and I don’t think that would be the right thing for patients.”
A spokesperson for The Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “The Trust has been working with its union representatives to keep disruption to a minimum and ensure the quality of patient care has not been compromised as a result of today’s industrial action.
“Emergency services, urgent care, maternity labour suite, trauma and cancer operations as well as outpatient clinics have all been running. There was a planned reduction in community midwife services and changes to scheduling for routine operations up to 11am, which were all rearranged in advance of today.”
