The first few words in the Manifesto of the Communist Party written by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels and first published in February 1848 are as follows: A spectre is haunting Europe..
They were talking about Communism of course but we also have a spectre haunting us. Have you noticed the tension within the Service over the last few weeks? Can you feel it? I can!
The spectre haunting us and building up the tension is the spectre of the Chancellor’s Comprehensive Spending Review and the Coalition White Paper on the future of the Health Service (Liberating the NHS).
Both these are vicious in their own right to working people, but together, now that the Health White Paper has passed through the first reading in Parliament (second reading on the 31st January 2011), they will form a social tsunami of hard-line, heartless ideological savagery on our public services.
This spectre that is haunting us is creating the tension that is in the air. We know something is coming but it has not reached us yet. We can hear the distant thunder, see the dark clouds, feel the cold air!
No matter how good our relationship and partnership has been within the Service over many, many years (to everyone’s advantage: staff, patients and public) when that social tsunami hits us, battle lines will be drawn.
We have to defend our Service, we have to defend the NHS, we have to defend the public sector.
I believe everyone within this Service, staff and management alike, should be on the side of those defending a free, democratic health service for all.
UNISON will defend what we have got and what is ours.
Difficult decisions will have to be made by the union and members. Let us stand together.
To paraphrase (and alter) Marx and Engels: Health Workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
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 Emergency Care Practitioners (ECP) staff are going through a difficult period. They have been placed on the ‘at risk’ register. I mentioned in a previous blog that their ECP Schemes with the Primary Care Trusts are being withdrawn and that the role itself (ECP) is coming to an end.
I was going to add the words ‘for the time being’ at the end of that paragraph because as we all know, health trusts and ambulance trusts have a habit of re-inventing the wheel.
They get rid of something one year and a couple of years down the line, amid a fanfare of trumpets, there is a rebirth of the same thing, only badged in a different way, with a different name.
I hope that doesn’t happen with this. Either we keep ECP staff as they are, or else we don’t. It is not fair for the staff to go through this traumatic upheaval only to see the same role resurface at some other time. We cannot treat staff like that.
One positive thing is that we have an agreement of no compulsory redundancies. I know at this present time that is no compensation to the staff involved who are thoroughly unhappy, but, while other trusts are dismissing staff, we are fighting to keep people in work.
One-to-one meetings are ongoing as part of the procedure. Staff will be able to discuss their options of redeployment and what it means for them.
The union is not happy regarding a couple of issues within the protection of Terms & Conditions offered and I am seeking clarification. These involve overtime and pay protection.
The problem with this sort of re-organisation is that things can change on a daily basis. More jobs can become available, new jobs can be developed and deadlines reached and passed.
In other words, the whole exercise is fluid.
I have organised a meeting for ECP staff early next month so that we can see where we are up to and what other things needs doing to get a transition that is beneficial to everyone.
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Winston Churchill’s six tooth upper dentures were sold last week for £19,000! I know what you are thinking: there must be collectors of famous people’s teeth!
£19,000 for a pair of 1945 gnashes’! And there wasn’t even a full set!
Apparently he wore them to stop a lisp.
Still, as he said…we’ll bite them on the beaches, we’ll bite them on the streets, we’ll bite them in our towns, we’ll bite them in our villages.
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If you are reading this, work for the London Ambulance Service or are eligible to join, and are not yet a member of UNISON Join Today!
 I Am Frontline You Are Frontline We Are All Frontline
We are stronger together.
Eric Roberts
Branch Secretary.
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