Bargaining news
NHS subsidiaries
Health service workers have claimed a “significant victory” after NHS Improvement, the national body that oversees NHS trusts, ordered them to suspend the practice of forming subsidiary companies.
Workers and their unions have been resisting the plans by NHS trusts across England to set up “arm’s length” subsidiaries and transfer NHS workers such as porters, cleaners and hospital maintenance staff.
Unions see this move as privatisation “by the back door” and could lead to attacks on wages, pensions and working conditions, because transferred workers are not covered by union agreements with the NHS.
NHS Improvement has ordered trusts to put the establishment of subsidiaries on hold pending “new guidance” in October.