- Conference
- 2022 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 9 December 2021
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that in the decade leading up to the pandemic UNISON was vocal about the lack of investment in staff and services and the consequences that cuts would have on them. Our regular staffing survey documented the growing concerns about shortages among many health occupations and settings.
So while the pandemic may serve as a helpful cover story for politicians wanting to explain away the worst waiting lists since the 1990’s, we know that it took years of disinvestment and poor decisions to create the crisis our members are now working through.
At our Special Conference in September 2021, we refreshed our campaign for optimum staffing levels across the UK. We also heard about the impact that short staffing was having on members, and people shared their fears that the backlog following the pandemic would make pre-existing pressures worse.
Sadly, there are no signs that the load is getting lighter. Almost every team is short of at least one member, meaning that any holiday or sick cover required, increases the workload for everyone. Team managers spend a significant proportion of their time finding people to fill gaps in rotas, meaning that time to support people in other ways is stretched ever thinner.
We know that overtime is not made universally available, so – in some settings – members are put under pressure to work hours in excess of their contract on bank rates. In other settings, poor planning and short staffing leave people forced into involuntary overtime at the end of already-long shifts. In the worst cases, members are routinely working unpaid in order to maintain safer conditions.
Registrants are rightly concerned that they are not able to fulfil their codes of practice, fearing that working too quickly; being constantly tired from excess work and lack of rest breaks; and having too few colleagues to assist them is compromising the quality of care they are able to deliver.
With predictions of the elective treatment backlog increasing further over the next three years, policy-makers must act now to reduce the impact of these pressures on our members before they become intolerable.
As well as taking forward our own package of work around safe staffing and workload management, we must also use our collective strength to protect members from the impact of working in the current climate.
Working time must be better controlled and plans put in place to reduce the amount of unplanned shift overruns and unpaid overtime undertaken. Staff rest and recovery must be prioritised to enable respite from the intensity of work and prevent a worsening of the wellbeing crisis. We must also make sure that bank arrangements are not designed to undermine the ability of members to get proper overtime rates.
Conference calls on the Service Group Executive to carry forward priorities agreed at the 2021 special health conference on these issues and to:
1. Work through Partnership structures to secure protections that limit the impact on NHS staff of the backlog and recovery on working time, work pressure, standards and staffing numbers
2. Work with regulators to manage the impact of the current workload and staffing crisis on standards of care and individual codes of conduct for health workers
3. Provide support and advice to health branches in their work to collectivise and campaign around the impact of the staffing crisis on standards in their services