Claims that medics who are currently voting on whether or not to strike over changes to on-call working have been told they must now buy their own milk for tea and coffee have been strongly denied by hospital bosses.
Staff at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital are being balloted by the GMB Union over whether to take industrial action over changes to the on-call shift working policy.
Currently, medics called in overnight are allowed to take paid leave the next morning to catch up on sleep.
The Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Royal Alex, has been consulting on proposals to change this so any time off must either be caught up with later or pay docked.
GMB says these changes could leave staff with a choice between working on no sleep or taking a pay cut of up to 30%. Last month, its members voted unanimously with an 78.4% turnout in an indicative ballot to consider industrial action.
Another ballot on whether or not to actually take action is currently taking place, closing on Monday, February 25.
The GMB today said that the trust’s response was to “snatch” staff’s daily milk – but the trust says there is no truth in this.
Gary Palmer, GMB Regional Organiser said: “My god, just how petty can senior management get? Let’s just hope that BSUH Chief Exec Dame Marianne Griffiths, her senior management team and Trust Execs are given ample warning that they will need to bring in their own milk from now for their tea and coffee, otherwise I expect the air will turn blue when they check the executive fridge.
“Let’s hope that common sense prevails within the management team, vindictive acts stop and that they concentrate on the numerous substantive issues they seem to have buried their heads in the sand from, with the GMB’s independent industrial action ballot result expected early pm on Monday 25 on the unfair detrimental changes to on-call.”
A trust spokesman said the milk had not been withdrawn, and there was no truth in the GMB’s claims.
GMB also said the trust thanked staff on February 5 for taking part in the consultation, but failed to rule out making the changes on April 1, instead saying further work and consideration is needed.
The trust spokesman said an announcement would be made imminently.
UPDATE: GMB said the milk issue has been resolved and it had been told the problem might have arisen simply from an administrative failure in renewing a costing code between departments, meaning that the milk was cancelled.
