More than 350 workers, employed at Colchester Hospital, Aldeburgh Hospital and several other ESNEFT community sites, walked out yesterday (25 November) until 13 December or the trust abandons plans to outsource their jobs, says the union. They have already taken more than 20 days of strikes.

Facilities at Ipswich Hospital, ESNEFT's other major acute site, and several community locations are currently provided by private contractor OCS. The OCS contract ends in April 2025 and Unison argues the trust should bring all services back in-house where they can be directly controlled and quality better assured.

Instead, the union says the trust wrote to in-house staff in April 2024 to tell them their jobs could be outsourced. At a board meeting in May, ESNEFT chief executive Nick Hulme was filmed telling workers there to lobby executives that the decision to outsource had already been made, Unison says.

Staff fear the sell-off will threaten their pay and conditions and pose a serious risk to patient safety.

Outsourced staff in Ipswich get fewer days of annual leave and less sick pay than their colleagues directly employed by the NHS. They also missed out on the extra one-off payment of £1,655 that NHS staff received in the last financial year.

Unison Eastern head of health Caroline Hennessy said: ‘These workers are proud to work for the NHS and provide essential services to keep hospitals clean, get patients where they need to be and get them fed. They know that their ability to provide those services will be fatally compromised if they're sold out of the NHS.

‘They don't want to strike but they've been left with no choice by trust leaders who have been refusing to listen. As soon as staff are told their jobs are staying in-house, they'll get straight back to work. But if the trust wants to plough on with its damaging sell-off they'll keep fighting to stay in the NHS.'

The ESNEFT board is due to meet in secret on 5 December to make its final decision on awarding a soft facilities contract.

The trust previously told Healthcare Management its soft facilities management staff were undergoing training to make sure it was able to provide essential cover for patients. Additional help was also sought from external partner organisations whose staff were also trained for the roles.