Preston and Chorley hospital pathology staff to "work to rule" in pay dispute

A group of pathology staff at the Royal Preston and Chorley and South Ribble Hospital - whose responsibilities include processing blood tests for patients hospitalised with Covid - will “work to rule” for three months over claims that they are being underpaid.
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Fourteen biomedical scientists employed by Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LTH) are set to take part in the action, which will see them “strictly adhere” to the job description for which the union Unite says they are being remunerated.

As the Post revealed back in September, the dispute centres on a requirement for them to work unsupervised.

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Unite says that the staff should be moved up a pay band as soon as they start to operate without supervision after between one and two years in the job - a move which would see their annual wage increase from £30,000 to just under £38,000.

Some of the staff who analyse samples at the Royal Preston and Chorley and South Ribble Hospital have voted to take industrial actionSome of the staff who analyse samples at the Royal Preston and Chorley and South Ribble Hospital have voted to take industrial action
Some of the staff who analyse samples at the Royal Preston and Chorley and South Ribble Hospital have voted to take industrial action

The union’s North West regional officer Keith Hutson says that the affected members who were balloted for industrial action - all of whom supported it - have been left in the lower bracket long after being expected to work alone at night and weekends.

They will now refuse to do so for 12 weeks from 7th December. Unite says members stopped short of a walk-out so that priority tests are not held up, but it does expect delays for more routine samples.

However, LTH says that it upheld the union's grievance after “a very thorough and fair” process late last year and offered to backdate the pay - but claims that the union has now introduced another complaint and advised their members to reject the settlement.

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“This is because they are now disputing the requirement for the pathology staff to complete their specialist portfolio before they can progress further within the new band,” an LTH spokesperson said.

“However, this is entirely appropriate and in line with what is expected of other staffing groups within the trust.

“It is extremely disappointing that, having had the original grievance upheld, both Unite and a small number of staff have decided that industrial action is appropriate whilst we are in the midst of a pandemic, particularly when so many other staff are going above and beyond the call of duty every single day.

“We think most people will be totally mystified as to why the union is advising staff to adopt this approach.”

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But Mr. Hutson hit back at the trust’s claims, saying that the upheld grievance stated that affected staff “should be moved over to the appropriate level on band 6, not put on the bottom of it”.

“I've got some members who have been working seven years and the contract of employment says that the specialist portfolio should have been done with two - so the employer is deliberately using it as a way to cap wages.

“The inability for people to have done the specialist portfolio is the fault of the employer, so until they address that part of the grievance, it is not over.

“We have also asked going forward for an agreement on how the portfolio gets implemented, because clearly they can’t be left to do it on their own.

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“We put this dispute in abatement back in March and said we'd revisit it when things got more back to normal - when [that happened] around July, they ignored us totally and only came back round the table when we forced them to,” Mr. Hutson added.

LTH says that its door is “always open” for talks and Unite says that it, too, is open to “constructive” discussions.

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