\n UNISON says the proposals from Dorset HealthCare University, Dorset County Hospital, and University Hospitals Dorset (UHD) will see mainly low-paid support staff including porters and cleaners moved to a wholly owned subsidiary, also known as a \u201csubco.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n The union claims the move goes against government pledges to bring employees back into the NHS rather than outsource them.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ahead of the general election, Labour promised \u201cthe biggest wave of insourcing of public services in a generation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Affected staff currently work across Dorset County, Royal Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch, and Weymouth hospitals. \u00a0An overwhelming majority (98 per cent) of\u00a0health\u00a0workers, say they want to vote for strike action in a row over this move.\n<\/p>\n
\n UNISON says workers fear the change could lead to worse pay and conditions in the future, and fewer career opportunities compared to NHS employees.\n<\/p>\n
\n Kerry Baigent, UNISON Southwest regional secretary, said: \u201cThe NHS depends on these workers to keep hospitals clean, safe and running efficiently. Many are already low-paid and outsourcing will leave them with a raw deal.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u00a0\u201cPorters, cleaners and other staff want to be part of the NHS, working as one team to give patients the best care possible.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u00a0\u201cBut this move casts valuable employees out to an arms-length company with no guarantee over pay and conditions.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u00a0\u201cThe NHS needs to be rebuilt, not dismantled and parcelled off to the lowest bidder. The government needs to honour its pledge to insource public services.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u00a0\u201cThis plan by these trusts goes against Labour\u2019s manifesto promise. It makes support staff feel they\u2019re not valued \u2013 and they won\u2019t be treated in this way.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n \u00a0UHD confirms the plan would not amount to privatisation, stressing the new company would be fully owned by the three NHS trusts. UHS says the company would not be \u201cexternal\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n A UHD spokesperson said: \u201cAny new company would remain 100 per cent owned by the trusts, and colleagues would keep their NHS terms, conditions, and pensions. It would not be an external company.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cStaff in estates, clinical engineering, facilities, sterile services, and procurement are central to safe, effective patient care. This plan aims to protect services across Dorset and maintain long-term job security.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n UNISON says its members have given a clear mandate to ballot for strike action and warns industrial action will happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UNISON says the proposals from Dorset HealthCare University, Dorset County Hospital, and University Hospitals Dorset (UHD) will see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-330819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114999436496516567","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}