Healthcare staff to strike for 48 hours over pay
Geograph/Andrew CurtisMore than 300 healthcare staff are set to take industrial action for 48 hours as part of a long-running dispute over pay.
Unison said healthcare assistants at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust would strike from 16 July.
The union said workers were successful in a request to be regraded to a higher pay band last year, but staff believed the changes should be backdated further than the two years given by the trust.
The trust, which runs hospitals including Alnwick Infirmary, Hexham General Hospital and North Tyneside General Hospital, said it would continue to work with the union and would ensure "the safe care of our patients".
Unison previously said the changes came after the trust recognised healthcare staff jobs had become "increasingly complex" over the years, yet they had been paid "the lowest hourly rate in the NHS".
Clare Williams, Unison's northern regional secretary, said: "For years, staff worked way above their pay grade.
"It's only right that having moved them up the NHS salary scale, their managers give them a sensible amount of compensation to cover all the wages they were denied."
She said the trust needed to the "right thing" and "come up with a significantly improved offer".
A trust spokesperson said the role was "re-banded" with effect from 1 July 2024, and pay was backdated to 1 April 2022.
They added: "We acted quickly to make the banding changes and pay backpay to those who were entitled to it before Christmas."
It is the fourth trust in north-east England to be in dispute with staff over wage banding, with workers in Teesside, South Tyneside and Sunderland negotiating a higher backpay deal.