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NHS staff are reporting an unprecedented rise in abuse from patients and the public, medical bodies have warned.1 In a joint statement from the BMA, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, NHS Employers, the Royal College of Nursing, and UNISON, leaders said that while patients are understandably frustrated by long waits and delays in the care they rightly expect, blaming members of …

In a joint letter to the prime minister, healthcare leaders have called for a plan, matched by investment, to tackle NHS staff shortages in the medium and long term. The NHS Confederation, NHS Providers, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges, and Unison warned that, without such a plan, vacancies would pose a huge risk to the retention of existing staff.1 Danny Mortimer, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said that the government desperately needed to …

Managers have secured a temporary agreement with a neighbouring ambulance trust following the collapse of a private ambulance service that was contracted to provide services for the NHS. Private Ambulance Service Ltd, based in Essex, was issued with a winding-up notice by the Inland Revenue on 27 September. It will cease trading from 9 October. Earlier this year, the company was awarded a contract by Bedfordshire, Luton, East and North Hertfordshire, and Herts Valley clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to provide non-urgent patient transport services in their areas after the previous provider, Medical Services Limited, served notice to quit its contract early. Since then, concerns have been raised by patients, the trade union UNISON, and some of the firm’s …

The Labour Party has pledged to give NHS staff a pay rise if it wins the UK general election, as it seeks to put health at the forefront of its campaign. The party will also legislate for minimum staffing levels in NHS trusts to prevent finances taking precedent over patient safety, and it plans to reinstate student bursaries for nurses and midwives if it wins the election on 8 June. Unveiling the proposals in a speech at the Unison Health Conference in Liverpool on Wednesday 26 April, Labour’s shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said that NHS staff had been “ignored, insulted, undervalued, overworked, and underpaid” by the Conservative government. A Labour government would scrap the current government’s 1% cap on staff pay that …

A serious shortage of skilled, specialist, and experienced staff in NHS trusts could “easily become a catastrophe,” the think tank the Smith Institute has warned. It said that the current squeeze on public sector pay was leading to trusts hiring fewer skilled staff and using more temporary staff and that this carried “potential risks to patients.”1 The institute, which was founded in memory of the Labour Party leader John Smith, undertook research for the trade union Unison between April and June 2015. It surveyed 43 human resource managers in NHS trusts and local authorities and conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with human resources directors and recruitment managers. NHS trusts “could be …

Nineteen trusts in southwest England want to break from national pay, terms, and conditions, indicates a leaked document obtained by the Sunday Times . The trusts have formed the South West Pay, Terms and Conditions Consortium to examine ways to deliver savings. Health unions and professional organisations have labelled the consortium a “pay cartel” that would push through regional changes that would not have been possible on a trust by trust basis. Labour’s shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, described the move as a “drastic step.” “This is an insult to staff who are working hard to keep the show on the road.” The leaked document suggests terminating all staff contracts and reoffering them on different terms. The new terms could include pay cuts of up to 5%, an …

A private hospital operator, Circle, has been given a 10 year franchise to run the ailing Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. The most complete takeover to date of a district general hospital by the private sector in the NHS’s 62 year history has provoked strong reactions. The BMA branded it an “untested and worrying experiment,” while Unison, the large trade union that represents many healthcare workers, condemned it as a move that would “put profits before patients” and “devastate the community,” given that Circle has no experience of running a district hospital. By contrast the employers’ organisation the Confederation of British Industry praised the deal, which is still subject to formal ratification by the Treasury, as a “trailblazing” new form …

Three leading NHS unions have questioned the wisdom of the government’s obligatory £15bn-20bn efficiency savings, saying a review of NHS resources would better identify where savings could be made. The BMA, Royal College of Nursing, and Unison, all giving evidence to the parliamentary health select committee, said there were other ways the NHS could save money rather than the government’s insistence that the whole NHS make £15bn-20bn (€17bn-23bn; $24bn-32bn) worth of efficiency savings by 2014. MPs on the committee, as part of their ongoing inquiry into public expenditure, asked the witnesses what impact the efficiency savings would have over the next few years given October’s comprehensive spending …

The public service union Unison has lost its High Court battle to force England’s health secretary, Andrew Lansley, to consult patients, employees, and the wider public before going ahead with plans for a major reorganisation of the NHS. The union argued at the High Court in London that the government was obliged to consult on the merits of the reforms themselves before reaching a “settled policy” and not just on their implementation. But Mr Justice Mitting ruled that there was no legal obligation on the government …

The legal challenge by the public service union Unison to the UK government’s plans for a shake-up of the NHS in England is to go ahead in the High Court on 13 October. The UK’s biggest public service union is challenging plans by the government, outlined in a white paper in July ( BMJ 2010;341:c3796, 14 Jul, doi:10.1136/bmj.c3796), for radical changes that include giving GPs control of their own health budgets and abolishing local primary care trusts. Unison contends that moves to start implementing Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS …

Ten of the United Kingdom’s largest trade unions have launched a joint campaign to stop what they describe as the coalition government’s “controversial” health white paper Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS. Unions representing around four million workers, including Unison, Unite, and the GMB, have come together with grassroots health campaigners and patients’ groups in a coordinated move against the new reforms, which were unveiled in July. Organised by the NHS Support Federation, an independent pressure group that aims to protect and promote the NHS, the campaign warned in its launch statement that the NHS was under threat. The campaign aims to mobilise NHS staff and patients against the white paper to exert pressure on MPs …

Unison, the UK’s largest public service union, is seeking a judicial review of the coalition government’s proposed healthcare reforms, on the grounds that the health secretary has failed to consult the public on the plans. The move coincides with the launch of a national online petition by independent pressure group, the NHS Support Federation. The federation believes that the government’s proposals will result in the break-up of the NHS. It signals the start of a concerted union campaign to try to derail the plans. Unison, which has 1.3 million members, contends that NHS chief executive David Nicholson’s instruction to all NHS chiefs to start implementing “immediately” the proposals outlined in the white paper Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS …

The UK’s largest public service union, Unison, has won a High Court victory that will restrict the extent to which NHS foundation trusts can involve themselves in private health care. Mr Justice Cranston has ruled at the High Court in London that Monitor, the independent regulator of foundation trusts, adopted too narrow a definition of “income derived from private charges” in fixing the cap on the proportion of income that trusts could make from private sources. In what he described as “a fiercely contested dispute about the future direction of the National Health Service,” the judge said the issue was the extent to which NHS foundation trusts were able to …

NHS organisations are now the “preferred provider” of NHS care, insists Andy Burnham, England’s health secretary. The announcement has been welcomed by the health service unions, including Unison, the BMA, and the Royal College of Nursing. But it produced a rather different reaction among private providers of NHS care, whose trade body, the NHS Partners Network, described it as “completely irresponsible.” From the Department of Health it brought a claim that policy “has not changed”—despite the fact that, Mr Burnham said, three separate parts of the NHS’s existing guidance and operating rules will have to be rewritten. Mr Burnham’s initial announcement came in …

All of the British healthcare trade unions and many representative bodies in the NHS have united in a new organisation aimed at forcing the government to change direction on its health reforms. NHS Together—which brings together unions affiliated to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) such as Unison and the GMB with organisations such as the BMA, the Royal College of Nursing, and the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association—was officially launched last week. …

The leadership of the Labour party was defeated on its health policy at last week's annual party conference. The vote at the conference in Manchester ended in defeat for the leadership when most delegates supported a motion from the trade union Unison. The motion called for a slowing down of the pace of reform in the NHS and an end to the growing …

EDITOR —Barnet, Enfield, and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust has formally twinned with mental health services in Sierra Leone.1 This small project, currently funded by UNISON trade union, aims to provide regular, annual, in-service training …

A Welsh hospital which has recruited 18 Filipino nurses has encountered confrontation from nursing unions. Fifteen of the nurses arrived at Llandough Hospital in Cardiff this week as a result of a recruitment drive launched in the Philippines after attempts to get staff elsewhere had failed. But both the Royal College of Nursing and UNISON are unhappy about the move and said that inadequate pay rises and unfavourable trust contracts are among the …