Trust hired ‘untrained strike-breakers who put patients at risk’, union claims

A trust has been accused of putting patients at risk by bringing in “untrained strike-breakers” from hundreds of miles away and paying for their hotel accommodation to ‘disrupt’ a week-long walkout by facilities management staff.

East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust brought in staff last week from as far away as Manchester, Newcastle and Hull on night shift rates of up to £27 an hour during industrial action by soft facilities management staff, Unison alleged.

The trust acknowledged workers from “external partner organisations” were brought in, but it said the staff were either already trained or had “undergone training to make sure [they] were able to provide essential cover for patients”.

The union cited alleged examples of what it claimed was the trust’s “cavalier attitude” to patient safety in a media statement. They included:

• External staff used to cover portering roles were “given just a two-hour induction for blood and oxygen monitoring duties. Regular training usually takes weeks”;
• Staff said “they saw serious breaches of infection control procedures, including mixing clinical waste with regular rubbish and leaving it piled up in corridors”; and
• Strikers finding milk and food left out past its use-by date rather than properly disposed of, which “poses a risk to patient safety” when they returned to work.

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Source: HSJ, 3 September 2024