Conference believes that the level of staffing of registered nurses in wards remains poor across the four countries that make up the UK. In Scotland, NHS Boards have to use the National Workforce and Workload Planning Tools. This can put too much emphasis on ‘professional judgement’ and can still lead to reduced staffing levels on […]
Conference motions
Conference congratulates health branches and the health service group executive on the industrial action taken to date as part of the NHS pay dispute. Conference notes that NHS workers continue to see the value of their pay being cut year on year as a result of the pay policies of governments across the UK and […]
UNISON members note in October the words of Andy Burnham “People before profits… no one gave the prime minister permission to put the NHS up for sale”. Conference welcomes his comments and those later in November that he wishes to return to an integrated health service which includes social care as part of the NHS. […]
Conference notes that mental health services are arguably in crisis. They have never necessarily achieved commensurate funding with general health care services, and the austerity policies of this government have hit mental health services disproportionately. There are extant problems with capacity, leading to large numbers of patients being transferred out of area. Whole swathes of […]
Health Conference is well aware and very concerned that thanks to the Tory led government the retirement age for all NHS workers will be increased to 67 years old. The detrimental impact on the health of all members forced to work until their last day at work will be significant, but in particularly there will […]
Conference notes the increase in recent years in the demand for nursing staff to work 12 hours, and other long shift patterns. While recognising that they are popular with some members we are aware that in some clinical areas there are significant concerns. The risk of fatigue leading to drug errors and their long term […]
Conference is concerned that changes to Agenda for Change that came into effect in April 2013 were not Equality Impact Assessed to measure the disproportionate effect on disabled health workers. Circulars issued by NHS Employers make no reference to scrutiny undertaken with regard to disability aspects of the revised terms and conditions and no separate […]
In 2015, it will be two years since we saw the implementation of this coalition government’s so called reforms to the health service and commissioning arrangements in England. The end of the purchaser / provider split, the end of primary care trusts, strategic health authorities, central services, and health protection agencies. In their place we […]
Conference notes 1.5 million people in the UK are employed by Employment Agencies, with around 350,000 people receiving less than the minimum wage. Very few employment agencies paying below the minimum wage have faced any legal action or been fined, despite breaking employment laws. In October 2014, the minimum wage for adults rose by 19p […]
Conference notes the over-representation of Black workers in the lower paid roles in the NHS; particularly bands 1-4. The staff in bands 1-4 make up around 40% of the 1.3 million workers in the NHS and are responsible for an estimated 60% of direct patient contact. However these workers receive less than 20% of the […]
Conference notes that 93% of the Health Service Group membership is employed within the National Health Service, and that we must continue to campaign for employment on decent pay within the NHS as a publicly-accountable, and properly-funded public service. This Conference further notes that the remaining 7% of the Health Service Group membership is employed […]
In UNISON more than 70% of our total membership are women. UNISON is committed to fair representation and proportionality (Rule D4.1). However, we know in the public sector where many of our members are Black Women we see very few represented at Branch, Regional and Committee level; despite statistics nationally telling us that Black people […]
Physical and mental well-being cannot be taken for granted, especially in today’s climate of an ever increasing workload, job cuts, austerity measures in services and service providers, the threat of redundancy and the pressure for some securing and sustaining employment, workplace stress, are some of the factors many people are now trying to deal with. […]
UNISON’s long-standing campaigns on equality, human rights and anti-racism make us an attractive and welcoming union for Black members and for migrant workers. As a result we have a large and growing Black and migrant workers membership and strong self organised groups for Black members. However, racism remains ever present in society. In Northern Ireland, […]