Chris Cannon, Unison striker, personal capacity
Prior to 2023, North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) staff progressing from control room roles to control room educators were awarded a 9% premium. These staff are wholly responsible for training 999 and 111 call handlers as well as ambulance dispatchers. They include new recruits alongside those taking on new internal roles.
The payment was introduced because the service was struggling to recruit and retain staff in education roles. It ensured that there was genuine career pay progression for staff taking on additional responsibilities.
This all changed following a NWAS restructure to the education team, which created two different posts doing the same work originally done in one role. These posts are still paid the same NHS pay band, but when the Trust created the new roles, they removed the top-up payment.
This meant that staff who were previously seconded long-term to educator posts, some for several years, immediately suffered a 9% pay cut. It meant that some staff on substantive contracts retained the 9% payment, while their colleagues are paid less to do exactly the same job, with the same responsibilities and requirements.
NWAS did all this without undertaking the joint review with trades unions, or providing any pay protection or extended notice. It created a divided, two-tier workforce.
The education team consists of 16 staff, many with years of good service including through Covid. This number accounts for 0.23% of the NWAS workforce of 7,000 staff. Restoring the much-needed 9% premium would be a drop in the ocean of their £470 million annual budget.
When the education team challenged the employer’s decision through a grievance process, the employer gave a commitment that a review would take place and that data used to justify any change would be shared. That was July last year, and it’s not happened since!
That’s why, reluctantly, Unison members balloted for industrial action. 17 days of strikes have taken place, finishing the latest round on 16 July. More days are planned through August, and the team has recently reballoted.
NWAS has failed to put forward any reasonable offer of a resolution.
All the while, the impact on the team is huge. The majority of staff are now seeking other roles in the service – and some even say they might leave the NHS – because they can’t afford to take a pay cut whilst taking on additional responsibility. Yet NWAS says there’s no retention crisis that warrants reinstating the payment.
This is reckless. Everyone in our society depends on an effective ambulance service that has staff with the skills and experience to keep us and our loved ones safe.
To make our voices heard, we are lobbying the NWAS board on 30 July, 10am-midday, at NWAS’s headquarters at Ladybridge Hall in Bolton. Join us to show our employer that while they might try to ignore us, we aren’t going away and we will fight for fair treatment.
