{"id":508328,"date":"2025-10-18T02:26:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T02:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/508328\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T02:26:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T02:26:22","slug":"pay-deal-reached-with-north-london-pathology-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/508328\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay deal reached with North London pathology staff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The workers from Health Services Laboratory had gone on strike last month, reports Finn Logue<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/North-Middlesex-Hospital-14-1024x768-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-585\"  \/>North Middlesex University Hospital<\/p>\n<p>North London pathology staff who went on strike last month will now receive improvements to their pay, grading system and training.<\/p>\n<p>The decision to strike by over 1,000 staff employed by Health Services Laboratory (HSL) has helped secure an average pay increase of 15.4% over two years, along with other policies such as additional annual leave.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/enfielddispatch.co.uk\/pathology-staff-across-north-london-set-to-strike-next-week\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">industrial action<\/a> was supported by Unite the Union, which represented staff at North Middlesex, Barnet and Chase Farm hospitals, amongst others.<\/p>\n<p>Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: \u201cStaff should be congratulated on this terrific victory and securing a pay award they fully deserve<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet this stand as a warning to any private sector NHS provider who thinks they can get away with short-changing our members. Unite wins for workers and is coming for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>HSL is an independent, private company that provides pathology and diagnostic services to NHS hospitals. Their staff provide over 70% of diagnostic services across seven NHS hospitals in North London.<\/p>\n<p>Staff employed by HSL raised concerns about their high workload endangering the safety of both themselves and their patients. These concerns were championed by Unite, which claimed that they were often doing work far above their pay\u00a0grade as a result of being outside of the NHS. Up until now, HSL did not work to NHS pay grading scales.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Following the dispute, HSL has agreed to consult Unite on all new and existing contracts worth over \u00a31m to determine workload and safe staffing levels.<\/p>\n<p>After their industrial action proved successful, staff were awarded sick pay, the introduction of special leave, two additional days of annual leave, a new and fair selection process for training to be overseen by Unite reps, and the confirmation that staff moving from NHS contracts to work for HSL will keep their pensions within the legal entity and receive \u00a32,500 compensation.<\/p>\n<p>Unite regional officer Maz Ebrahim added: \u201c[The staff] had the full backing of the union in their dispute, and have now won an above-inflation pay award alongside new conditions that are a just reward for doing a skilled and valuable role.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Independent news outlets like ours \u2013 reporting for the community without rich backers \u2013 are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, or one-off donation.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Choose the news. Don\u2019t lose the news.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Monthly direct debit\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pay.gocardless.com\/AL00061S9E8542\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760754381_765_10-HCP.png\" style=\"height:40px; width:91px\"\/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/pay.gocardless.com\/AL00061S5481TN\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760754382_562_5-HCP.png\" style=\"height:40px; width:91px\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/donate\/?hosted_button_id=TUNK36TZFGXYU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Donate now with Pay Pal\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760754382_192_13-2-paypal-donate-button-png-images.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/haringeycommunitypress.co.uk\/support-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">More information on supporting us monthly<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/haringeycommunitypress.co.uk\/donations\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">More Information about donations<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The workers from Health Services Laboratory had gone on strike last month, reports Finn Logue North Middlesex University&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,10843,257,211,133053,2952,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-508328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-industrial-action","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-nhs","14":"tag-north-middlesex-hospital","15":"tag-strike","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115392806118054148","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508328","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=508328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}