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 […]
Conference welcomes the increasing strength of the intersex movement and the third International Intersex Organising Forum, held in Malta in November 2013, attended by activists representing 30 intersex organisations from all continents. It notes that the Forum adopted a public statement including recommendations on a wide range of issues of concern to people born intersex. […]
UNISON research into zero hours contracts shows that more than 40% of care workers are on these contracts. Activists are reporting that more employers are using zero hours contracts more widely across the NHS. This also includes operational service staff. Zero hours contracts are imbalanced and the employer reaps all the benefits. Members are asked […]
Our NHS is facing the biggest threats in its 65 year history. The impact of the Health and Social Care Act is being felt across all four countries and austerity measures, reorganisations, funding cuts and freezes that are being imposed by the Westminster Government has led to increasing fragmentation of health services. Since 2013 when […]
Conference notes that on 7 May 2015 a new government will be elected in Westminster. Whatever its political make-up, there will be repercussions for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. As evidenced by the LGBT group’s research on the impact of austerity, four years of Conservative-led government have seen LGBT workers’ pay fall in […]
Conference recalls that in 2010, the United Kingdom (UK) Coalition Government pledged: ‘We will stop the deportation of asylum seekers who have had to leave particular countries because of their sexual orientation’. David Cameron promised that: “Those Africans seeking asylum on the basis of sexual orientation and at real risk of persecution in their home […]
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 […]
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, […]