- Conference
- 2024 National Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 8 December 2023
- Decision
- Carried
Conference recognises the widespread under funding within the NHS in the United Kingdom today. Many services are at breaking point or already broken. Our members are suffering as a result.
Within the Trust our branch represents, we provide mental health and learning disability services, both of which are under immense pressure from years of underfunding from the Westminster Government. However, we also provide a regional gender identity service, which is currently in crisis and has been forced to close to new referrals. We know other NHS Trust providers of this regional service are experiencing similar pressures.
Members in our branch who work and provide these vital gender services are at breaking point. They experience heightened stress due to the pressures on the service, continuously dealing with backlogs and delays. This takes a toll on their mental wellbeing, exacerbated by being unable to give the care they are so desperate to provide.
Conference notes that prolonged exposure to high-stress environments caused by long waiting times (some of which are getting close to 7 years in gender affirming care) can contribute to burnout amongst NHS staff. Burnout leads to emotional exhaustion, reduced job satisfaction, and will impact the quality of care provided to patients and service users. This has become a Health and Safety issue for our union.
Long waiting times can also result in increased workloads for our members. This can affect their work-life balance, causing them to work longer hours to meet targets, potentially leading to fatigue and impacting their personal lives.
While many trans and gender diverse people are stuck on ever increasing wating lists they still require access to appropriate person-centred health care. We are aware that the risk of self-harm and suicide is higher amongst trans people waiting for gender affirming care, which puts extra pressure on health care services providing generic mental health support and treatment. Many of our branch members are expected to deliver mental health support to those waiting for gender services, but feel they do not have the skills, knowledge, and training to provide appropriate care.
This lack of funding for Gender Identity Services is not just impacting on our trans colleagues and friends but also on our dedicated members who currently work in both mental health and gender affirming services.
We call upon the Health Care Service Group Executive to:
1. Recognise this situation as a Health and Safety issue for our members, who feel they are at risk of failing to provide appropriate care to trans people, which in turn adds additional pressures to their already overstretched and stressful roles.
2. Work with the relevant parts of UNISON to campaign on the need to ensure adequate support and education is available to our members who are ‘filling the vacuum’ left by the lack of appropriate trans healthcare.
3. Encourage branches to negotiate with NHS employers to provide appropriate training to staff to ensure they are able to provide gender affirming health care to those who need it, and in that process complete stress risk assessments for our UNISON members.