Nurses Strike 1988

An iconic picture from the 1988 nurses dispute lead by COHSE and NUPE local activists, which resulted in one of the biggest ever pay rises for nurses

Edinburgh NUPE Nurses against privatisation of hospital cleaning services

Leeds Hospital Laundry Workers Work-In

Leeds Hospital (Laundry) Sit In 

Circa 1981


Community Action No 62

Attempts by health chiefs at St.James Hospital, Leeds , to slash laundry workers wages by 5% and cut bonuses from 33% to 27% have been met with fierce resistance from staff.

Workers are staging a sit-in  at the hospital which is just one of the many which have the £600.000 - £800,000 hacked off the Leeds Health Authority budget this year.

Average take-home pay at the laundry is £45 for the women, who work on average 32 hours per week, and £77 for the men, who average 46 hours a.week.

 Suzi Armitage, COHSE Branch secretary, explained that £160.000 is  to be cut from the laundry service
  over the next two years, as the authority plans to bring 'manning  levels' into line with reduced demand.

 Management are likel.y to introduce a number of proposals to make efficiency savings,.including natural wastage and the threat of bringing in private contractors.

 Laundry services are among the areas of hospital work ear-marked for orivatisation by the government, which issued a circular to health authorities telling them to look at contracting-out such
services far more.

The main point of the threat of  privatisation is to drive wages down to the lowest possible levels as has been happening in council services privatised. If the workers won't accept pay or job cuts from the authority, then contractors are brought in to enforce them.

 But the workers are ready to fight. As the one health union official put it :
 "If we let them get away with this , riding roughshod over agreements, then. they'll be able to get away with anything". 

With further he'alth cuts on the way,and privatisers hungry for proftable contracts, the attacks will no doubt increase. The battle in Leeds could be a vital early one in a long war.

Hammersmith Hospital Strike 1984

Hammersmith Hospital

In 1983 the Conservative Party keen to destroy public services decided to force through privatisation of hospital cleaning. This led to cuts of 50% in cleaning staff, poor pay and more importantly a massive increase in infection rates.

One of the first contracts to be awarded to the private sector (as the NHS Cleaning staff refused to cut their staff and pay) was at Hammersmith hospital. The subsequent strike was one of the most aggressive fought and included occupations and breaking up of Board meetings.

The contract went to Mediclean (who also won contracts at St Helier, Sutton and Bridge Hospital, Essex. The £450,000 Hammersmith contract started on 28th January 1985.

While a majority of the NUPE and COHSE members struck, a significant minority remained in work and the strike divided by country, the Irish and Portuguese being the strongest. helped no doubt that the NUPE Branch secretary Lydia Fraser was Portuguese (her husband Pete Fraser was NUPE branch secretary at St Charles Hospital. While a number of the COHSE branch officers were Irish.

Not all workers had their pay cut the contract manager Simon Cox at Hammersmith it was discovered was on £15,000 a year. COHSE was able to secure the pay and benefits package for all key Mediclean staff much to Medicleans embarrassment, this included BUPA coverage and top of the range cars while cleaning staff had their pay cut, holidays, sick pay, pensions, overtinme and weekend rates.

The Cleaning staff at Hammersmith Hospitalwas was cut from the original 220 staff to 158 and the number of full time staff was cut from 122 to just 28.

Withe regard to cleaning hours in the contracts they were cut from 6,170 to 2,802 per week hardly surprising that "so called" savings were made. but this was at the direct cost of hospital cleanliness. Today over 70% of hospital cleaning contracts are still in the private sector and the Tories have a cheek to complain about dirty NHS hospitals....who made them dirty ?.

Below right Lydia and Pete Fraser at COHSE Conference 1984

Labour's Action Plan for theNHS 1991

LABOUR’S ACTION PLAN FOR HEALTH
By Robin Cook MP, 23rd September 1991
(shadow Secretary of State for Health)

THE FIRST TEN STEPS

1. Halt the opting out of hospitals and other units in the second (if before 01/04/92) and third waves

2. Sign the orders bringing back those hospitals and other units that have already opted out

3. Re-name the department, Department of Health and Community Care and appoint a Minister of State with the sole responsibility for care in the community

4. Instruct all hospitals to scrap all tow-tier deals on waiting lists and admit patients in order of medical need

5. Restore the right of GP’s to refer their patients to the hospital of their choice and stop health managers blocking referrals to hospitals where they have not placed a contract

6. Set the terms of reference of the Quality Commission for the health service

7. Declare a moratorium on the privatisation of geriatric services pending a review of the need for public provision for long term care of elderly people

8. Start negotiations to remove the pressure in the GP’s contract to increase patient lists, and fix a lower maximum on patients’ GPs

9. Set up a task force to tackle waiting list black spots

10. Appoint new members of health authorities who represent their local community, live locally and use the NHS

also other points which included

ACTION TO HALT PRIVATISATION

21. Set up an enquiry into weather there is a link between length of waiting lists and the amount of private practice

22. Halt further contracts for the construction of private commercial wings on NHS sites

23. End compulsory competitive tendering in the health service and introduce quality standards for ancillary services

24. Notify private insurance companies of the withdrawal of tax relief for private medical cover

RCN "no opposition" to contacting out - 1989

CONTRACTING OUT OF SERVICES FROM THE NHS
ADVICE PACK FOR RCN MEMBERS

June 1989

WHAT THE POLICY MEANS IN PRACTICE

1. The role of competitive tendering in the NHS

The RCN stance on competitive tendering means that there is no opposition in principle to the concept of contracting out. The College accepts that there may be areas where efficiency savings and/or improvements to services can be made, and that the process of competitive tendering may assist with this. However, it is paramount that the standard of patient care must be at least maintained, and preferably improved. The generation of savings cannot be considered in isolation from other effects of competitive tendering.

The RCN policy aims to ensure that all aspects of services are considered, and that decisions on contracts are based on professional assessment of overall quality of service to patients, not on purely financial grounds.

Experience in the NHS to date has shown that the risk of contracting out is such that the RCN believes it can only be justified if substantial amounts of money are saved and used to the direct benefit of patient care.

NOTE:
This “blinkered” RCN position lead the local RCN officer during the Hillingdon hospital domestic dispute to state that it had nothing to do with nursing