Today marks the second of five days of strike action at the East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust.
Hundreds of workers are affected by the ESNEFT plans to outsource soft facilities to OCS, arguing that ‘in house is best’ and calling for their jobs to remain in the NHS.
Workers fear that if their jobs are outsourced, their pay and conditions could get worse and patient safety could be at risk. Facilities workers at Ipswich hospital have already been outsourced to OCS and receive less sick pay than their colleagues in Colchester currently employed by the NHS.
John Franklin, porter at Colchester hospital told Keep Our NHS Public in July:
“Staff are extremely sad to be balloting to strike but the ESNEFT board have given us no option but to take this action. No hospital employee wants this but we will not be treated as cannon fodder because the trust has failed to run our trust appropriately. Staff give their hearts and souls into working for the NHS, we care immensely about the patients and their care. However we will not accept being sold off like a piece of equipment to a private company so they can make money and the ESNEFT trust can fool themselves into believing that this will be better value for money or improve services. Staff know that this is simply not the truth and with OCS a current provider in Ipswich being currently at an overspend of £13 million this just proves that the trust have not considered the issue of privatisation properly. Staff will continue to fight for their jobs, the public for the best service possible and that is In-House!”
The current OCS contract is set to run out in April. Unison is calling for all ancillary workers to be brought in house and be employed by the NHS.
Workers from the trust spoke at Keep Our NHS Public’s (KONP) recent campaigners conference in June, outlining their already poor working conditions and calling for their employer to keep their jobs in house. You can watch the full video here. Stephen Childs, an ESNEFT housekeeper told us:
“In 2019 I was taken on as a housekeeper at the primary care centre, by OCS , a private cleaning company.
In 2020 we was taken back in house under the NHS, but on my OCS contract. In November of that I had a accident and done my ligaments and tendons in my foot, I was told by the doctor I would need 8 weeks of work, I only had 2 weeks as I wasn’t paid sick pay … I don’t want to be put in that position again, so going on strike seems the only option to protect mine and others jobs.”
Picket lines have has so far been met with enthusiasm from the local community and workers from other unions, with CWU and Unite and Unite Community members all joining UNISON members on the picket line.
KONP extends our solidarity to the facilities and soft services staff on strike in Essex and Suffolk and encourages those who can to join their picket lines – see below for more information.
Why we should oppose outsourcing
Keep Our NHS Public calls for an end to all outsourcing in the NHS, and for all staff and services to be brought back in house. This would not only mean less funds go to the private sector, but would also mean better pay and conditions for staff and greater accountability for trusts.
In their manifesto the Labour party promised that they would take steps to regulate outsourcing of NHS services more strictly, for instance:
‘Before any service is contracted out, public bodies must carry out a quick and proportionate public interest test, to understand whether that work could not be more effectively done in-house.’
They also promised to end ‘unfair two-tiered workforces.’
As KONP co-founder, John Lister, wrote in July, ‘this should mean Wes Streeting – directly or indirectly – stepping in to halt moves by trusts like East Suffolk and North Essex FT to outsource cleaning catering and other non-clinical support services, or further moves to outsource clinical care and diagnostic services.’
The Labour government should urgently commit to ending all outsourcing in the NHS, and provide the health service with the funding it so desperately needs to bring all services back in house. Outsourcing remains a serious issue in the NHS and we refute claims that using ‘spare capacity’ in the private sector can relieve pressure on the health service, the reality is that it allows money to be syphoned off to private companies, whether they are providing staff or routine operations such as cateracts procedures.
We should also keep up the pressure, for instance by supporting industrial disputes such as we have in East Suffolk and North Essex.
The picket location and times are as follows:
COLCHESTER HOSPITAL
Turner Rd,
Colchester
CO4 5JL
⏰ 7:30am-12:30pm
📆 Monday the 19th, Tuesday the 20th, Wednesday the 21st, Thursday the 22nd and Friday the 23rd
📍On the grass verge by the main Hospital entrance.
🏥 This will be the main picket line for all Soft Services staff from Colchester Hospital, PCC and Fryatt.
There are also be further strike dates planned in September, follow Unison Eastern on X/Twitter for updates.
It’s difficult to comprehend how having unequivocally announced that the Trust had decided to outsource Facilities in a statement published April 5th 2024 that they are now criticising the Facilities staff for taking this action and suggesting that no decision has been made yet. What seems obvious is they under estimate the strength of feeling as well as being extremely dismissive of the roles we play in making the hospital as safe and as pleasant an environment as we can for the patients,
This practice of hiving off workers from the NHS into pivate companies was outlawed so what happened?
Leave these dedicated workers in the NHS It Takes a full team to care for patients in the NHS, ‘People before profit’
My son is a house keeper at ESNEFT Colchester and is extremely proud to be a member/employee of the NHS.
His mother and I are extremely proud of him for the work he does and his support on the recent picket lines outside the hospital. He and his fellow workers are not asking for increases in pay etc, only the right to carry on as they are. We have been told that outsourcing has been used at Colchester on three occasions in the past and each time they have failed ( Carillion being the last), perhaps the ESNEFT board should think about this or do they want it all to fail for a fourth time. It is public money that pays the salaries of the board and Mr Hulme, so it begs the question why are we paying for such outstanding incompetence.
Keep it in house, keep it best and give the public the best.
If they need to save money, make the running of the car parks an in house organisation and stop paying profits to an outside company.