Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust are pushing forward with controversial plans to move 600 current NHS staff into a new private company. Staff affected are balloting this week for industrial action to retain their NHS employment status which protects their terms and conditions and their pension rights. In response to employees losing their NHS employment status, the Trust is offering a 25-year guarantee that nothing will be changed in the terms and conditions.
Natalie Ratcliffe, regional organiser from Unison, said: “The Trust keep repeating the so called 25-year promise that nothing will change. I would simply remind members: Our legal advice is that the 25-year guarantee is very limited and does not give the protection people may believe it does. In correspondence with Unison, the Trust have accepted that in “certain circumstance” employers can lawfully dismiss and re-engage workers on different terms and conditions provided they are following a fair process and have a good business reason.”
Bradford South MP Judith Cummins has already written to Secretary of State for Health, Matt Hancock MP and to the CEO of NHS Improvement to demand that the controversial plans to create a wholly owned subsidiary company at BRI be halted.
Judith said: “It is wrong that such drastic plans are being pushed through by Bradford Teaching Hospitals Trust when they are currently being led by a temporary chief executive and temporary Chair. I will be meeting with the Trust’s Chief Executive this month, where I will be demanding that their plans to create a wholly owned subsidiary company be put on hold until a permanent leadership team is put in place. This in my opinion is the best way to avoid any industrial action that will disrupt services to patients, whilst protecting to rights of staff.”
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