NHS workers pushing for strikes as cuts threaten thousands of jobs

Unite union members rally against NHS cuts in east London

Health workers at sites across London held protests against cuts to the NHS on Thursday.  

Members of the Unite union at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals, the Royal Brompton and the Royal London Hospital, among others, rallied at lunchtime to oppose plans to cut thousands of jobs. 

“My team has been cut by half. We’re already stretched thin as it is,” Shanaz told Socialist Worker, on the protest at Mile End Hospital in the east end of London. 

Shanaz is a mental health practitioner with the Tower Hamlets Early Detection Service and Community Psychology Service.  

She works for the NHS East London Foundation Trust (ELFT), which is planning to push through £24.9 million cuts this year. In real terms, this would result in 331 redundancies across the trust.

“These cuts will impact carers, services and staff,” Shanaz said. 

“And it’s all part of a bigger process—a push to privatise more and more of the NHS.

“Trusts dismantle specialist services like this one, by cutting staff. And when those services then ‘fail’, they use that as justification for privatisation,” she added. 

For Shanaz, it’s not only workers who will suffer, but people who rely on the services they provide.

“These cuts impact real people. People who are in need. 

“There are people in Tower Hamlets who have been traumatised by various things, whether that’s misogyny, poverty or racism, among other things,” she said.

The attacks on workers at ELFT are part of a much bigger picture. According to the Unison union, more than 20,000 jobs are at risk across England. At the same time, there are more than 7.3 million people on NHS waiting lists. 

“We know that when this Labour government came into office, the waiting lists were already over 7 million,” Tony O’Sullivan, national co-chair of the campaign group Keep Our NHS Public, told the workers at Mile End Hospital. 

“What I hadn’t realised until recently, is that this number didn’t even include mental health patients. 

“There are then another 1.7 million people waiting for mental health support,” he said. 

“Now, the other day, Yvette Cooper, the health secretary, announced the construction of 150 or so new mental health centres, but not a single penny for NHS mental health staff like yourselves. 

“And when she was asked how these new centres are going to be staffed, she said that the current mental health staff are going to have to learn to work differently.”

But, in the face of attacks from the trust, Unite members at ELFT are fighting back. 

They are demanding the reinstatement of their union rep, Mark Dunne, who has already been made redundant. 

“Mark dared to challenge the trust on restorative pay, safe staffing and then these cuts. So they made him redundant,” a Unite rep said. 

But there are plans for strikes as well.

“We are pushing for a ballot, setting up a strike committee. Because the only way we are going to get what we want is by fighting for what we believe in,” the rep added.  

“We can save the NHS, as long as we are willing to fight for it,” Shanaz said.