Hospital staff set to walk out in back-pay row

Hospital workers in Leeds are due to strike later this week in a dispute over back-pay, a union has said.

Theatre assistants in four hospitals run by Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust were expected to walk out for 48 hours at 08:00 GMT on Thursday, according to Unison.

The union claimed the staff had not been paid for work which they had carried out while in the wrong pay grade. They had performed tasks such as inserting cannulas, collecting samples and sterilising equipment, which Unison said should have been paid at a higher rate.

A spokesperson for the hospitals trust said it was working with those involved to try to resolve the dispute "as soon as possible".

According to Unison, the staff who were affected had been offered one year's back-pay, while other staff elsewhere had received compensation back to April 2021.

Imogen Woods, Unison Yorkshire and Humberside area organiser, said there was still time for the trust to avoid the strike.

"The last thing staff want to be doing is standing on a cold picket line in the run-up to Christmas," she said.

"But they have been asking managers to resolve this for over a year now and have been left with no other option."

Dr Magnus Harrison, chief medical officer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said it was "working together with colleagues in theatres and our staff-side representatives to try and resolve this dispute as soon as possible".

Unison said the picket line would be held by the roundabout at the entrance to Leeds General Infirmary.

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