- Conference
- 2005 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 23 November 2004
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes the initiatives being pursued by the various health departments to address recruitment and retention of staff, specifically around flexible working and other initiatives to enable staff to achieve a better work-life balance.
UNISON has campaigned long and hard to address these issues on behalf of members and the timing of key initiatives such as Practice Plus stage of Improving Working Lives in England, the PIN Guidelines in Scotland, Employer of Choice in Northern Ireland and the Work-Life Balance aspect of Delivering for Patients in Wales, provide opportunities for us to revitalise our efforts on behalf of members and ensure that our members are properly involved in determining improvements to their working lives. Most of the initiatives from the four countries are extremely broad and present us with issues to campaign around. The potential for trade union involvement in these initiatives is immense and UNISON activists are key to ensuring a shift takes place, from process and policies to real change, improving life for all our members.
Conference urges delegates to re-look at Composite D passed last year, review it in terms of what is happening in the context of each country, take stock of our involvement in every health branch and use the opportunities presented to actively engage members in these initiatives.
Conference also calls on the Health Group Executive to commit resources to supporting branches in their work around these initiatives. Information about progress should be shared across the union not only within health, but across service groups, via UNISON’s web pages on UNISON’s wider campaign around work-life balance issues.