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October 2016
South West Yorkshire Partnership Health
• There For You UNISON Welfare • Attention all women Know your pension entitlement
Free flu jabs for NHS staff Members working for our main employer South West Yorkshire Partnership Foundation Trust (SWYPFT) may have already seen signs of this year’s campaign around the various sites and on the Trust Intranet. Our very own branch Treasurer and Welfare Officer Evelyn Beckley is featured heavily in the advertising campaign and as a UNISON branch we are keen to support the initiative. Apart from the usual factors of protecting our own health and the health of those we care for, this year there is added significance to the flu campaign. The NHS has set a target of 75% of frontline staff having a flu jab as a CQUIN. In simple terms if the Trust does not meet the 75% target they will be fined £380,000 of funding they would have otherwise received. We can argue all day about whether or not that’s a fair way to do things, but we need to make clear UNISON does support staff having the flu jab to protect ourselves, our families and our patients. When many people pay for their own flu jab it seems odd that so many of us don’t take advantage of a free one! For more details click on “Flu” under “F” on the Trust Intranet index or contact the branch.
Branch Treasurer Evelyn Beckley promoting the SWYPFT Flu Campaign
• The Kinsley Three – Supporting three brave cleaners • Are you ex-COHSE? Check your entitlements
• Branch Socials – Join your branch for a Christmas shopping trip to Chester and a visit to the Pantomime!
Worrying times The last few months have been far from happy times for this branch and our members. Following controversial decisions from local councils, groups of our members in Wakefield have been made redundant while others in Barnsley have been forced to leave NHS employment. At the end of July Wakefield Council told SWYPFT it wanted them to stop running the Health Trainer Service, the Community Food & Health service and part of the Safe at Home (domestic violence) service by 30th September. The jobs of around 40 NHS staff have now gone and just as our members are devastated to be forced out, we are devastated to lose them. Similarly in Barnsley, around 20 of our members have been transferred to work with Barnsley Council following a transfer of responsibility for providing the 0-19 (School Nursing & Health Visiting) services in the town. Obviously this isn’t quite as bad as the Wakefield Health trainers because at least these members have a job to go to. The difficult thing for the members to accept was whilst
there is no doubt Barnsley Council are a responsible public sector employer, when people come to work in the health service they do so because they want to be part of the NHS and they are proud of that. It’s not easy for dedicated staff to leave that behind, particularly when some of them have decades of NHS service. In the current climate of transformation, cost improvements and retendering exercises, perhaps the lesson here is we all need to be ready to face change but at the same time ready to ensure that all processes are carried out in a fair and appropriate manner. UNISON is here to support you and if the time ever arrives when you need support through difficult circumstances, we will be there by your side when you need us.
UNISON Health Trainers hand petition to Councillor Pat Garbutt
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