- Conference
- 2025 National Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 5 December 2024
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that across the UK hundreds of thousands of NHS staff are employed on zero-hour bank contracts, either working on a Trust or Board Bank contract or working for NHS Professionals. These workers have contracts that offer flexibility at the expense of job security, with terms and conditions that are worse than other permanent (substantive) NHS staff they work alongside.
Bank workers often feel less valued than their substantive colleagues and if they become unwell or their circumstances change, they could lose their income and face financial hardship. With over 70% of bank workers in England alone relying on bank work as their main source of paid work, this is a precarious situation with real-life consequences.
Conference notes the workforce data that shows bank-only workers are predominantly female, often low paid, and are disproportionately likely to be Black. This leaves the NHS with a two-tier workforce, with Black and female bank staff working under less favourable conditions than their substantive colleagues.
In addition to NHS organisation running their own banks, in England NHS Professionals also operate Trust banks across the NHS. The 2024 Health Conference motion “NHS Professionals – campaign for recognition” highlighted the vulnerability of these workers due to a lack of trade union recognition, no collective bargaining, and no transparency into NHS Professionals’ operating practices.
Conference welcomes the UK Government’s “Next Steps to Make Work Pay” plan setting out its policy to end one-sided flexibility, ban exploitative zero hours contracts and give workers the ability to move to guaranteed hours based on what they regularly work. The landmark Employment Rights Act will set out the legal mechanism by which this will happen.
Conference recognises that there will be opposition to the Bill and attempts to water down the provisions. We will need to campaign hard and recruit and organise bank workers to ensure they get the benefits of these new legal rights in the way they were intended.
Conference commends the launch of UNISON’s Better NHS Bank Charter to encourage employers to take steps now to prepare for the bigger changes to come. This charter is the first of its kind in the NHS and is a way for employers to work in partnership with UNISON to show support and value NHS bank staff, and to signal their commitment to ending exploitative zero hours contracts in the NHS now, before they are forced to by the law.
Conference calls on the HSGE to:
1. prepare branches and reps for how the new Employment Rights Act will impact zero hours bank workers in their workplaces, ensuring we deliver on the commitment to end the one-sided exploitative nature of NHS Bank contracts.
2. push for early employer action on offering Bank workers guaranteed hours on Agenda for Change terms, in preparation for positive implementation of new rights to guaranteed hours and notice of shift changes.
3. develop a strategy for influencing how NHS Professionals implements Employment Rights Act provisions, including action to achieve collective bargaining rights for our members working there.
4. set out organising advice for branches, adapted for different UK settings, using promotion of UNISON’s Better NHS Bank Charter to recruit and organise Bank workers
5. reaffirm our aim to get a collective national Bank framework agreement through the NHS Staff Council.
6. work with the devolved administrations on non-substantive workforce issues.