The importance of healthcare assistants in the success of UNISON’s rebanding campaign was highlighted at conference today.
The motion ‘organising with healthcare assistants’ addressed the impact of HCAs on the Pay Fair for Patient Care campaign over the past three years – and UNISON’s desire to ensure they remain active within the union.
Proposing the motion for Greater London region, Michelle Davis, branch secretary of South London and Maudsley branch, spoke of the members who helped to secure over £200m in back pay and gain recognition and respect for the work that they do.
“We are so proud of their achievements,” she said. “Conference, it was our healthcare assistants who stood on picket lines day in and day out, in some branches, and who sat across the table alongside their branch leadership, with chief executives in talks with Acas.
“Healthcare assistants have contributed to the growth of our union throughout the Pay Fair for Patient Care campaign. And so it’s important to galvanise them and strengthen these activist bases within branches.”
Ms Davis continued: “Our healthcare assistants know firsthand the implications of correctly matching and banding job descriptions as part of the NHS job evaluation processes. And so this motion will enable and support other staffing group members to rightly be rebanded where the evidence suggests there is a case to be so.
“This motion calls upon our service group executive to build on the successes of our healthcare assistants and create a space to listen, hear, act and learn from their firsthand experiences and gain insight for campaigns now and in the future.
“They are the beacon to show other staffing groups what is possible, demonstrating that organising to win as a strategy does just that. It wins.”
Delegates passed the motion, which calls upon the executive to run a national healthcare assistant seminar in 2026 – to better understand the priorities of the HCA workforce and identify how they can be involved in future campaigns.
The executive will also utilise the direct experience of HCAs and their reps in the union’s endeavours to increase job evaluation capacity and to help other staff groups campaign for changed job re-evaluations, where evidence shows there is a genuine case for re-banding.
A second motion, proposed by Homerton Homerton Hospital NHS Trust branch, also raised the importance of learning and sharing lessons from the Pay Fair campaign so far.
The motion noted that in many regions the campaign has been so successful that there are relatively few clinical support workers left to reband. Phlebotomists and nurses have been identified as priority occupations for the next phase of the campaign.
Conference noted that through working on these campaigns branch activists had accumulated valuable experience and learned how to address and overcome a variety of challenges in practice – all lessons that could be shared as best practice for the next wave of campaigns.
Delegates charges the service group executive to conduct a survey of all UNISON health branches which have conducted Pay Fair for Patient Care campaigns to identify best practice and key learnings, with the results made available to members. It should also encourage and support regional health committees to organise regional Pay Fair for Patient Care organising conferences, which will deliver training in organising skills, and share experience.
