East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust is trying to give healthcare support workers £3,000 less than they were promised in a recent pay agreement, says UNISON today.
The union and the trust reached an agreement in August to put healthcare support staff on a higher NHS pay band. This was in recognition of the workers being paid for years on the lower band 2 of the NHS Agenda for Care salary scale but performing duties that should have placed them on the next one up, band 3.
The workers had been regularly, and over many years, undertaking more complex clinical duties — such as blood monitoring, inserting cannulas and doing echocardiograms — which should be paid at the higher of the two NHS pay scales, says the union.
However, UNISON says some of the longest-serving staff have received thousands of pounds less than they were promised as compensation for the many years in which the trust had been paying them unfairly.
The shortfall is due to the employees being placed on a lower pay point on band 3 than had been agreed. UNISON says this ignores years of prior service and the trust’s own calculations for support workers who have been in post since before April 2018.
In addition, some of the staff who work mainly night and weekend shifts have received nothing*, says UNISON. These support workers, who have more than two years’ experience prior to 2021, understood their compensatory back pay would be significant, adds the union.
UNISON says this amount is again based on the trust’s own figures that clearly showed the workers doing unsocial hours shifts would be treated as if they were at the top of the higher band 3.
Staff were preparing to take strike action over the whole rebanding issue when UNISON and trust managers reached an agreement in the summer.
This put the healthcare support workers on the higher band, boosted salaries by around £2,000 a year, and compensated staff for the time they’d spent on the wrong wages.
UNISON Eastern regional officer Lucas Bertholdi-Saad said: “Healthcare support workers are essential to the running of the NHS but the trust had been using them to provide care on the cheap.
“The workers were delighted when the trust finally agreed to give them the respect, recognition and pay they deserved earlier this year.
“But they had a nightmare before Christmas when they discovered the money in their wage packets was thousands of pounds less than had been promised.
“East Suffolk and North Essex must do the right thing and give staff their due.”
