WAVE OF UNREST SWEEPS WEST MIDLANDS NHS

16/17-09-2006

Tony Blair's visit to a Birmingham hospital this week has done nothing to quell a rising tide of unrest a among health service workersacross the West Midlands. Two strikes are planned in the coming weeks as workers battle for the soul of the NHS.

On Thursday, the Prime Minister visited the QE in Edgbaston, the site of the city's first new hospital for 70 years, due to be built under a controversial Private Finance Initiative.

He claimed that the NHS would remain “true to its values” but was also “changing with the times” - which to many workers in the region will sound like typical Blairite double-speak.

Staff at NHS Logistics, for example, are still coming to terms with the news that their jobs are being outsourced to the German company DHL.

These are the workers who deliver all kinds of items from loo rolls to chairs to hospitals all over the country and there are several depots in this area.

The quality of the work and its value for money has never been questioned, but it is being handed to an overseas company for what appear to be ideological reasons.

Unions have now declared strike action next week - and who can blame them.

Meanwhile managers at Heartlands Hospital attempting to repair the damage caused by the last big wave of NHS privatisation - at the height of Thatcherism - are also facing unrest.

Porters and domestic staffthere were contracted out to Initial Services in the mid-1980's and have suffered worse pay and conditions than their NHS colleagues ever since.

That imbalance is due to be rectified next year under a national agreement, but after successful local negotiations Heartlands staff were due to get their upgrade early in October.

Now though, Initial and/or the hospital are dragging their heels and a strike is on the cards in a fortnight's time.