- Conference
- 2015 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 3 December 2014
- Decision
- Carried
Conference is deeply concerned the NHS workforce is being de-skilled in many areas.
Previously agreed between the unions and employer Agenda for Change job description and person specifications are being ignored by NHS, wards, departments, clinics, etc, because they are unable to recruit employees with the qualifications, experience and competence the job description describes for the wages they are offering.
A pay freeze for many of our members over the last four years and possibly extending to 2016, uncertainty on incremental pay, reduction in the value of NHS pension, cuts in out of hours payments, and competition for skills, have seen NHS pay lag further behind many areas of both public and private sector causing a recruitment and retention crisis as staff morale has been eroded.
These problems and many more are preventing financially strapped NHS trusts, hospitals, wards and departments, from recruiting the qualified skilled people needed and expected for a 21st century National Health Care Service.
This can leave staffing at dangerous levels putting pressure on departments and intolerable stress on staff. As a consequence statutory and health and safety requirements are being compromised.
Branches are finding that NHS wards, departments, clinics, etc, employ personnel that do not match agreed job descriptions to fill long term vacancies. This has the effect of de-skilling the workforce so they have a workforce they can afford, not a skilled workforce they need competent for the job.
Part two, Section five of the nationally agreed NHS Terms and Conditions of Service, Recruitment and Retention Premium, should rectify this problem. But trusts with massive debts are unable to afford these payments.
At the same time we have a coalition government who want to privatise Britain’s National Health Service by stealth. Running down the skills and in creating a shortage of qualified personnel this will be used to rid us of the ethos of a publicly run NHS.
Conference calls on the Health Care Service Group Executive to:
1) highlight the problem with the Department of Health, Government, Pay Review Body, political allies and the general public campaign for a properly funded NHS populated by appropriately skilled and competent staff;
2) highlight the shortage of skills and the necessary remedy to the press, public and other relevant bodies;
3) use this systemic problem in any pay claim;
4) for the Service Group Executive, regions and branches, to highlight the problem in any NHS negotiations;
5) where the NHS has difficulties recruiting, to encourage branches and stewards to make local pay claims for recruitment and retention with the full support of regions and the national union.