Conference believes that since the election of the Tory-led coalition, the remit issued by the Government to the Pay Review Body (PRB) each year has been so restrictive as to remove any genuinely independent process from establishing NHS Pay. In effect each of the remits has purely asked the PRB to recommend how the Government’s […]
Conference motions
Community Stewards: Training and Support, Negotiating, Bargaining and Facility Time Conference recognises that trained stewards are vital to the success of building and recruiting strong UNISON membership within the community sector and to ensure that its membership is fully able to represent its members. Also many groups of workers in the Community Service Group are […]
UNISON branches and members have been at the forefront of campaigns over the last two decades and more to keep our National Health Service public. When necessary and allowed, UNISON branches and members have taken industrial action to maintain and promote the National Health Service. Conference condemns the shameful decision of Nottingham University Hospitals NHS […]
Conference condemns the wholesale privatisation of large parts of the NHS by the Con / Dem government. Without any democratic mandate the NHS is being dismantled bit by bit and handed over to private sector providers who are driven by the profit motive rather than a commitment to deliver quality care for patients. Conference rejects […]
Conference is all too aware that the Coalition Government led by the Tories are ideologically committed to dismantling the NHS and selling it off to their friends in the private healthcare sector. Cameron’s pre election promise that there would be no top down reorganisation of the NHS was mere hypocrisy. Their underfunding of the NHS […]
Conference proposes that UNISON campaigns to bring front line ambulance workers pension retirement age in line with other emergency workers. Front line ambulance staff are soon to be expected to work until they are 67 years old, this is unrealistic bearing in mind the arduous and unpredictable nature of the work. Shift work and long […]
HCAs feel undervalued and under the spotlight. HCAs perform one of the most important caring roles; they provide the frontline fundamentals of care, including bathing, helping vulnerable people to eat and go to the bathroom with dignity. Statistics show that HCAs and other support worker roles deliver up to 60% of direct patient care and […]
Both the UK government and all devolved governments in the UK have a statutory duty to promote equality of opportunity. Most recently the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) concluded that the UK Government had failed to take steps to ensure that there was even application of equality requirements. Agenda for […]
Conference notes the alarming expansion of privatisation within the English NHS. For example, the NHS Support Federation found that the private sector had won 21 of the first 25 NHS contracts awarded since April 2013, and it has been estimated that £5bn of NHS work is now up for grabs. Since the abolition of the […]
Conference notes that the integration of health and social care has become a key debate in the NHS across the UK over the past year. Conference notes that although only Northern Ireland has full structural integration of health and social care, governing parties from all political persuasions are pursuing integration policies in Scotland, Wales and […]
Conference recognises that in the run-up to the general election, all political parties will be setting out their policies on the NHS including the structures in the four countries and the ideological differences behind them; the different approaches to integration with social care, and outcomes for patients and the way that serious complaints are handled. […]
Conference notes with concern the negative impact job re-design and privatisation is having on career pathways in the ambulance service. The increased use of private ambulance companies in the provision of patient transport services (PTS) has seen significant numbers of UNISON members being transferred outside of the NHS. Not only does this represent a threat […]
The current pilot arrangements for aspiring student nurses to experience 12 months work in an HCA role are a knee jerk response to the Francis Report, and fail to fully take account of current experiential learning which many students experience prior to commencing their formal studies. UNISON fully supports the principle of widening participation and […]
National guidelines state that at least 75% of the most serious Category ‘A’ 999 calls should be responded to within eight minutes (Red 1 target). But less than half of trusts are able to meet their target to reach the most critically ill patients within this time. These delays are caused by a range of […]
Conference notes the continuing trend for NHS Trusts to outsource services such as Learning Disability Services, to companies such as Thera, Creative Support, and others. Increasingly members who are transferred to such organisations under TUPE, have seen serious attacks on terms and conditions. In some cases, the transferred staff, on protected NHS terms and conditions, […]