NHS

Unite, which balloted 77, 000 workers, said there was a 3-1 vote in favour of industrial action, with just over half backing walkouts. The union said industrial action would start before Christmas although officials would not decide until later this week what form the action will take.

We all know that the NHS is undergoing a period of 'reform', but what is actually happening? And what does this mean for those of us who work within the NHS?

Most of us at some point in our lives will use Health and Social care services, be they NHS, Local Authority, or private sector. Many of us also will be only too aware of the major funding crisis that exists, threatening many of the basic services we have taken for granted in the past.

Not long after the rejection of a pay deal by NHS workers in the GMB, 94.8% of Unite's health sector workers - including health visitors, hospital pharmacists, health care chaplains and members in many other health care professions and support services voted to turn down the three year offer worth less than 8%.

If their decision is confirmed by the 450,000 NHS workers in Unison next week, the government may be forced to abandon its attempt to reach a long-term settlement.

Following a proposal of three years of sub-inflationary pay rises UNISON Head of Health, Karen Jennings, said that she would be "asking our executive to consider recommending this deal to members as a well-balanced package"

The proposed deal gives 2.75% in the first year.

In year 2 it gives 2.54%. Those on the lowest point will receive an increase of 5.7%.

The appeal, which bosses deliberated over for a week, attempted to overturn the decision to dismiss Reissman, who was sacked for 'gross misconduct' after criticising cuts to NHS services in the media.

The NHS Blood and Transplant Board which manages the NBS aims to axe blood centre in this area, in cuts plans that will see 600 jobs lost. However it emerged this week, in addition to the two recent deaths as a result of shortages in specially matched platelets, that the impact of the cuts is already being felt in other hospital shortages of blood, in your area and across the country.

More than 150 staff, who care for 1,000 seriously-ill psychiatric patients, are on picket lines across Manchester and say they will not return to work until senior nurse Karen Reissmann is reinstated.

The strike follows the decision of Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust bosses to sack Ms Reissmann on Monday.

UNISON members who work for Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust are protesting about the ongoing suspension of their branch chair and national health executive member, Karen Reissmann.

This coincides with the disciplinary hearing for their branch chair, Karen Reissmann. There will be a mass lobby of the hearing Thursday 18th October 8am, at the Trust’s headquarters (Chorlton House, 70 Manchester Rd, Chorlton, Manchester M21 9UN) where the disciplinary hearing will take place.

In a statement, UNISON said:

- but they weren’t surprised.

UNISON, who represent 5,500 healthworkers in Leicestershire, described the decision to pay Mr Smith such a huge amount of money as “an insult to the commitment and dedication of ordinary healthworkers”.

Striking nurses lobbied their board last Thursday and were told their trust had “made approaches to Unison Regional Centre regarding ways of halting the industrial action”. When they met yesterday (Monday) UNISON regional officers were merely informed that the trust was to convene a disciplinary hearing for Karen the week beginning 15th October.

If given the go-ahead, the move would affect 44 workers, who are members of the union Unite, who are employed by the private contractor Serco. Angry staff claim they are missing out on the same pay and benefits that there NHS employed counterparts receive. They are campaigning for the company to introduce a system similar to the NHS's Agenda for Change scheme, in which wages were reconfigured.

Reissmann, a psychiatric nurse, was suspended in June for allegedly bringing Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust into disrepute.

The union Unison said she was suspended for speaking out against job cuts and government policies. The NHS trust has said it is a private employment matter. About 700 workers staged a similar three-day strike last month.

About half the strikers were on lively picket lines at the four main sites - at Wythenshawe Hospital, Chorlton House (Trust HQ), Manchester Royal Infirmary and North Manchester General Hospital.

With Unison also preparing to ballot members for strike action over pay on the 20th August, days after 95% Royal College of Nursing members asked to be balloted for strike action, Unison’s leadership have sent a message to all branches demanding that activists take no position on the government’s below inflation pay offer.

NHS employers and union representatives meet today to discuss a new settlement for health staff in England.

Mike Jackson, UNISON’s lead negotiator, said the unions were hopeful there would be more money on the table.

30 years ago: Rita Ward and the Great Northampton Hospital ‘lie-in”
We hear a lot these days about the ‘creeping privatisation’ of the NHS. We have a Labour government committed to turning our free National Health Service into just another business along the lines of the American model, which sees poor people refused medical treatment because they can’t afford it.

Faced with projected deficits for the second year running, NHS trusts were put under pressure to economise by closing wards, laying off staff and delaying patients' operations until the start of the new financial year. A Guardian analysis of health authority figures has revealed the huge surplus.