By John Wimperis Local Democracy Reporter: Councillors have raised alarm over plans to hand hundreds of NHS staff across Bath and Wiltshire over to a private company.
Bath’s Royal United Hospital (RUH) is set to move all of its “bank” staff — who pick up flexible shifts to cover staff absences or increased demand on the NHS — from NHS employment to private company Pulse on August 1. The move is intended to cut costs but local councillors have warned it could impact patients.
Chair of Bath and North East Somerset Council’s health scrutiny committee Dine Romero (Southdown, Liberal Democrat) said: “We would want to raise our concerns […] around the probability that this decision will affect the provision of services to our residents in Bath and North East Somerset.” The move is happening jointly with Salisbury NHS Trust and Swindon’s Great Western Hospital NHS Trust, who work with the RUH as “BSW Hospitals Group.” It is expected to save the NHS between £3.3m and £5.4m through a reduction in the employer pension contribution staff are entitled to. Nicola James, a former governor at the RUH, warned a meeting of the health scrutiny committee on April 20: “That is not efficiency saving, it is a cost deliberately shifted onto the workers to plug a deficit.”
Bank staff includes a host of roles across nursing, midwifery, and “allied” health professionals, as well as administrative, catering, and ancillary staff. Doctors themselves would not be affected. NHS staff receive an employer contribution of 23.7%. The roughly 60% of bank staff who do bank work on top of standard 37.5 hour-per-week NHS contracts will continue to receive this pension contribution. But the remaining roughly 40% of bank staff will just receive an employer pension contribution of 6% once they are transferred to Pulse. Unison branch secretary Baz Harding-Clark, who has worked at the RUH for 20 years and is also affected by the plans, told the committee: “For a healthcare assistant working a bank shift for another 10 years, the difference between a 23.7% NHS employer pension contribution and around 6% in the private sector represents tens of thousands of pounds in lost retirement income.” All 13 trade unions registered with the RUH are opposed to the plan. Mr Harding-Clark said: “Taking bank away will put the trust at risk of not having staff to fall back on in short gaps or to fill in annual leave/vacancies that have not been filled and those type of things.” He warned: “That would put patient care at risk.”
The plan had not been made public until Ms James and Mr Harding-Clark brought the issue to the committee on April 20. The NHS integrated care board, which is responsible for commissioning care across Bath and North East Somerset and Wiltshire area, was only told about it by the RUH that morning.
Ms Romero said that the hospitals had a statutory duty to inform councillors of significant changes and should have informed the health scrutiny committee of the plan. The committee has now asked the hospital trusts to address councillors’ concerns while it decides whether to escalate the issue to secretary of state Wes Streeting.
A spokesperson for the BSW Hospitals Group said: “The new temporary staffing model represents a significant transformation in how flexible workforce capacity is managed across the BSW Hospitals Group. Operating within the current financial constraints within the NHS, the new model aims to reduce costs, improve efficiency, enhance workforce experience, and strengthen resilience, while balancing the impact of change on existing members of the bank.
“We recognise that some workers may find the change unsettling, particularly in relation to pension arrangements for those without an additional substantive NHS contract. We will make every effort to make the transition to the new provider as seamless as possible and encourage staff where possible to apply for suitable substantive roles.”
Protect Our NHS B&NES said it was “appalled” that the NHS bank staff were being handed to a for-profit private company. It said: “NHS staff, whether substantive or bank employees, take huge pride in working for the NHS and fully support its ethos of high quality care for all. The BSW Hospitals Group risks losing a cohort of highly skilled, experienced staff through this decision, which will significantly impact patient care in an already understaffed NHS.”
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