Report on Unite's NHS Anti-Cuts rally April 22nd - what next?

On April 22nd Unite held a rally and lobby of Parliament against NHS cuts. The rally was decently attended with approximately 100-120 reps and members in attendance.

Reps and members heard from Sharon Graham about the scale of NHS cuts, that the Department of Health is expecting £6.6 billion of cuts to the NHS over the next year. Graham advocated for a wealth tax on th 1% to raise £25 billion and avoid any need for cuts. We also heard from reps who were engaged in struggles; the health visitors of Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Hospital who have been on strike since 23rd February over the refusal of their health board to honour their pay banding, and Hertfordshire Trust where cuts are being made to vital cancer services.

No speakers were heard from London, despite pathology workers from Barking Havering & Redbridge NHS Trust being in the middle of a dispute and due to take strike action on the 27th April. Sharon Graham referenced the dispute in her speech, but lead rep Ucheoma Ugoji was not invited to address the rally. Neither was Chair of the London Health RISC Mark Dunne invited to speak, despite his branch East London NHS Foundation Trust winning a dispute with an outsourced employer in December 2025, showing Unite can fight and win in the NHS. And despite the rally taking place across the river from from Guys & St Thomas Hospitals, we were not invited to address the rally.

Maybe the reason lies with the fact all those branches stood candidates against the leadership slate. Whatever the reason it shows the organisers were not making there decisions based purely on platforming workers in struggle, as all branches have current or recent disputes.

While the governments 3.3% pay award was mentioned, no mention was made of when the union would open a consultative ballot over the issue, despite everyone being aware we are about to experience an episode of severe inflation due to the US-Israel attack on Iran. Its concerning that we don't have a date for the consultative ballot starting, neither has the union produced any materials analysing and agitating around the 3.3%, even though Unites own figures show inflation is now at 4.1% and much higher for certain essential products like food stuffs and utilities.

While attendance at the rally was decent, half the participants were health visitors on strike from Cwm Taf Morgannwg. Without their mobilisation the rally would have been only 50-60 people. This points to very weak organisation at present across Unite Health, being unable to mobilise more than roughly 50-60 reps nationally for an anti-cuts rally.

Its points to a real need for investment in organising in health, to rebuild branches and recruit more reps to strengthen The Health Sector.

Another notable issue was the absence of the Back to the Workplace candidates; none of the NHS members (Len Hockey, David Agleby, Suzanne Abachor) standing from London in the leadership-backed election slate attended the rally.

Its deeply concerning that the Health reps backed by the leadership could not attend this crucial rally. 

There were two lobbies of Parliament organised, one at 12am and another at 2pm. I attended at 12am. The lobby appeared poorly organised, as only two MPs turned up to hear from workers, John McDonnell and Rachel Maskell.

Workers made a number of comments about the struggles they faced across the country, and MPs promised to take this away, however a GSTT rep remarked to me afterwards, how were the MPs to remember the stories as neither of them took any notes in the meeting?! It was unclear if anyone from Unite was taking minutes to pass on their record of what was said.

I heard afterwards that the 2pm lobby didnt go well as it took people 90 minutes to get through security to enter the room!

While a welcome step forward after over a year of lobbying from London reps for the union to launch an anti-cuts campaign, the rally also showed the weaknesses of Unite in Health and the need for some serious organising work to overcome this.

Now the campaign has finally started we need to keep up the momentum. I recommend the union does the following:

1. Produce materials laying out the scale of cuts we face, providing answers for where funding can come from to invest in the NHS instead of cut (wealth tax, raising taxes on profits, changing CGT etc).

2. Set dates for the start of the consultative pay ballot,  include questions on whether members will strike over cuts and ensure materials cover both pay and the cuts issue.

3. Put out a call for a September/October national march against NHS cuts, so we can start building for it now and lobbying other unions to support and bring their members. Its important that there is a long term focus for the campaign, as well as the immediate fights and consultative ballots. As a national demo will take time and energy to coordinate and won't be put together quickly so the longer we give ourselves, the better.

4. Use the national combine to bring together reps nationally to share information and work towards a national gathering of NHS union reps to plan a united fightback against cuts in the service.

All health reps should be raising and discussing these issues in their branches, and RISCs should convene regional combine meetings regularly so reps have a space to coordinate and share info about cuts in their region.

Vote Mark Boothroyd for Unite Executive Council - Ballot opens 23rd March, return your postal ballot ASAP

I’m standing fo Unite Executive Council to push Unite to invest in Health, to rebuild union organisation so we can effectively campaign to restore NHS pay. I'm an A&E nurse, and have worked in the NHS for 17 years. As Branch Secretary at Guy's & St Thomas Hospitals, I have led multiple strikes to win pay increases, and to protect and improve working conditions. 

For too long Unite has neglected Health, its single largest sector. Aerospace, Oil & Gas, Steel, all have dedicated campaigns for their members, yet the Health sector members of Unite have no dedicated campaign about the NHS cuts, poor pay or privatisation of our services. I want to change this, with your support. 

Please watch my campaign video below:

Unite NHS reps are tired of empty promises around organising in the Health Sector. The crisis in the NHS gets worse every month, our meagre yearly pay rises are destroyed by inflation. Yet we see little action from the top of Unite. Union organisation is threadbare in many workplaces; workplace reps are overworked, burnt out, and their numbers are falling. Members struggle to access advice and support. 

I want Unite to invest seriously in organising the health sector, rebuild health branches and develop an industrial strategy to fight year round to stop the job cuts and restore the value of NHS pay lost to inflation. Many of our members in London are on poverty pay, winning a pay rise is essential to allow them to continue to live and work in the capital.

If elected I commit to visit branches and RISCs around the country to hear directly from members and reps what support they need, and communicate this back to the Executive.

I will write and publish reports from Executive Council meetings - creating openness and transparency - so members see what is being discussed and who is making decisions about our union and Sector.

If elected I will push Unite to:

• Invest money and organisers in rebuilding health organisation, recruiting workplace reps, ensuring branches are able to support members cases and take industrial action.

• Run national campaigns on the NHS crisis, highlighting the lack of investment and government policy causing the cuts.

• Develop an industrial strategy for the NHS; we must fight to raise NHS pay every year, like the BMA has done for doctors.

• Give no support to Labour unless they support our demands for the NHS and for workers rights. No more members’ money for the party cutting our NHS and scapegoating our migrant colleagues and patients.

• Set up a professional case worker system so members can access support and advice quickly.

• Organise anti-racist, anti-Reform campaign. We must mobilise our diverse multinational membership in protests and strikes to defeat Reforms attempts to divide us.

• Maintain commitment to internationalism: Support liberation struggles in Palestine & Ukraine, oppose wars and dictatorships in Sudan & Iran. Develop links with the workers movements there, support their struggles against foreign occupiers and domestic bosses.

If you are organising a hustings meeting for your branch or region, I would be happy to attend, please contact me at:

Email: markb4uniteexec@gmail.com

Phone: 07902318546

Unite supports NHS SOS protest over corridor care - February 25th

 Activists from Just Treatment and the NHS SOS coalition organised a protest march from St Thomas Hospital to parliament to highlight the scandal of corridor care in the NHS. Unite reps and officers turned out to support them.

NHS union reps, staff and patients pushed beds and wheelchairs over Westminster bridge to highlight the undignified and unsafe conditions patients are forced to endure.

The rally in parliament square highlighted the scale of the crisis with an estimated 16,000 avoidable deaths due to corridor care in 2024. We demanded the government invest in social care and in creating more beds in the NHS, so patients can be safely discharged from hospitals to make way for new patients, and so there are sufficient beds to meet patient needs. The NHS has significantly less beds than the OECD average of 4.1 beds per 1000, with only 2.4 beds per 1000 people in the UK.

The corridor care crisis is easily solvable, if the government will invest the money to create the bed capacity in social care and the NHS.

Draft plan for London & Eastern High Cost Area Supplement Campaign

Draft plan for London & Eastern High Cost Area Supplement Campaign

This plan was presented to the London & Eastern Health Combine and RISC in January and February. Guys and St Thomas Hospitals Branch proposed the motion for a HCAS campaign that was passed at the RISC.

Introduction

What is the High Cost Area Supplement?

The High Cost Area Supplement (HCAS), sometimes referred to as “London Weighting” is additional payment made to NHS workers who work in London and the surrounding areas. It was implemented as part of Agenda for Change, and was aimed to establish equity among the various forms of additional pay that were implemented across London hospitals.

HCAS is divided in to three areas:

Area	2025/26 pay rate
Inner London	20% subject to a minimum payment of £5,609 and a maximum of £8,466 per annum
Outer London	15% subject to a minimum payment of £4,714 and a maximum of £5,941 per annum.
Fringe	5% subject to a minimum payment of £1,303 and a maximum payment of £2,198 per annum.

The areas it covered are based on the boundaries of old Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities, organisations which no longer exist and have been replaced by Integrated Care Boards (ICBs).

Problems with HCAS

Boundaries no longer reflect NHS organisation

HCAS was implemented in 2004, and has not been updated since. It has not been updated to reflect the fact that organisations which its areas applied, to no longer exist. A two decade of NHS cuts, privatisations, mergers and regional and national reorganisations have reshaped the NHS, and meant the boundaries do not reflect the current lay out of services and workplaces.

Barts Trust includes staff at The Royal London Hospital, and Newham Hospital. Royal London is in inner London, while Newham is in Outer London, creating pay inequalities within one NHS organisation.

Does not match rising cost of living

Nor has it not been updated to reflect the rising cost of living, which has risen hugely in London over the past two decades. While 20 years ago there may have been some difference in living costs to justify the different pay areas, now all of London is expensive to live in, and NHS workers either have to pay extortionate rents and struggle to pay their bills, or live on the outskirts of London, with long commutes to work on top of long shifts.

Regions around London have similar cost of living, but are not in HCAS

Surrounding towns and cities have also seen huge rises in the cost of living, and they are completely exempt from HCAS. The rising cost of living necessitates additional pay arrangements for those areas being created to compensate NHS workers for the rising costs there. NHS workers in these towns and cities in London & Eastern, and South Eastern regions have the highest cost of living in the country, but no compensation.

What are Unite’s demands?

Campaigning around the issue of HCAS can mobilise a large swathe of NHS workers, if we have demands which give them something to fight for. 

This necessitates demands to expand coverage of HCAS to surrounding regions, giving those outside its catchment area a reason to join the campaign, and demands to eliminate the inequality present in the current arrangements so workers across London’s boroughs will mobilise.

Draft demands

1. Renew HCAS - raise the HCAS rate, and expand its coverage
2. Redraw the boundaries - One rate for all the London Boroughs
3. Raise the rate, remove the cap - raise the London rate by 10%, remove the salary cap so workers receive all of the additional pay.
4. HCAS for Eastern and South Eastern regions - towns and cities surrounding London and in those regions to have their own HCAS rates

How shall we campaign?

The campaign should be organised through the LE combine, with all branches asked to send delegates to LE Combine meetings so that they are included in campaign planning and can report back on developments and local progress.

The Combines work can be reported back to the RISC, and oversight provided there.

1. Petition

Unite L&E should launch a petition asking NHS workers if they support the demands of the campaign, and if they are willing to take strike action to win these demands.

This can be an online and paper petition. The aim will be to secure 5000 signatures across Unite’s London & Eastern membership over the next two months, and present these signatures to the DOH in an action in March/April.

2. Leafleting

L&E to produce a model leaflet two-sided leaflet containing information about campaign, with space for branches to add their own specific local issues. Branches to be responsible for leafleting and petitioning their members.

3. Meetings

Branches to organise local meetings about the HCAS campaign in February, and L&E to hold a London wide meeting for reps and members in March, to prepare members for balloting on the issue as part of the national pay campaign.

4. Protests

L&E Reps to organise a protest march for HCAS renewal in March. Reps to book the day off, and take part in protest march from a hospital to DOH to deliver signatures and dispute letter. Propose we use St Thomas Hospital as starting point for march. Aim to mobilise 40-50 reps to protest, plus any members who can attend.

Rallies can be organised locally at NHS Trusts to build support for the campaign

Further protests can be held as the campaign develops; other targets could be:

• Meetings where Wes Streeting is attending
• Labour Party HQ
• NHS Trust offices

5. Ballot

L&E Region to formally open dispute with DOH in March, so that issue can be included on consultative ballots alongside national pay and cuts, and so we can proceed with ballot if other regions do not want to campaign.

Map of HCAS areas:

 

Motions to the L&E RISC - Creating Caseworkers for Unite, timeframe for the 2026/27 Pay award

These were motions proposed to the London & Eastern RISC in September 2025. They were amended and submitted to the Regional Committee, and Health National Industrial Sector Committee respectively.

The first motion proposes creating a case worker system for Unite to support members and regional officers with the increased load of casework, due to the decline in workplace reps in some sectors.

The second motion proposes a timeline for this years NHS pay campaign. Too often the union has waited months for the outcome of the PRB report, rather than taking the initiative and starting ballots as soon as a pay award is not granted in April, as the BMA has succesfully done.

Motion: Invest in caseworkers to support Unite members

Motion on creating Caseworkers for Unite

This RISC notes:

1. Unite has a duty to support its members both collectively through industrial action and campaigns, and individually through supporting their individual employee relations cases.

2. At present there is no system to support members with individual case work; if there is no active branch in a workplace the burden of case work falls entirely on Regional Officers.

3. In a situation where branch organisation is in decline across many sectors, and where Unite offers membership in completely unorganised workplaces, this places a huge burden of work on Regional Officers.

4. This workload prevents RO’s from being able to support members in the workplace and organise campaigns and industrial action, and leads to a poor service for members needing individual support.

This RISC believes:

1. To rectify the situation the union needs to invest in case workers to handle individual cases from workplaces where Unite is recognised, but without functioning branches, or from the unorganised workplaces where it offers individuals membership.

2. By investing in professional caseworkers, Unite will provide a better, more consistent service to members, resulting in member retention and increased subscriptions.

3. This investment will free up officer time which can be better spent supporting branches and taking forward industrial organising campaigns which will grow and strengthen the union, recruiting more members and increasing our strength in areas where the union has declining membership and organisation

This RISC calls on the Unite Executive to:

1. Urgently develop a plan for creating a caseworker department in every Region which can takeover the responsibility for individual casework from Regional Officers

2. Commit to invest the necessary resource to recruit and staff caseworker offices in every region, in proportion to the need for casework support.

3. Contact our sister unions which have caseworkers for advice and guidance on how to organise and structure this new function to provide the best service to members.

Motion: A timeframe for the 2026/27 NHS Pay campaign

The L&E RISC notes:

1. NHS members are set to ballot in September/October over the 2025/26 pay award. Strike action will not be able to take place till November or December.

2. This time frame has been forced upon us by the long delay in initiating the consultative ballot over pay, and the failure to submit a pay claim earlier in the year.

3. Unite Health needs to avoid falling into this situation again for future pay awards as it creates delay and an unnecessarily lengthy pay campaign, putting extra stress on reps energy and resources to maintain the momentum of the campaign.

The L&E RISC believes:

1. Unite Health should initiate a consultative ballot over pay as soon as the government has failed to agree a pay award on April 1st.

2. We cannot keep allowing the government to dictate the time frame and timescale of our pay campaign.

3. Drawn out pay campaigns waste precious time and energy, while the crisis in the NHS and the cuts and privatisations worsen with each month.

4. The BMA has show you can undertake a consultative ballot, and industrial action ballot prior to August, if you begin consulting members in April.

5. There is nothing to stop the union initiating a consultative ballot in April, regardless of the government having issued its formal pay award. Continuing the practice of waiting for the government pay award allows the government to delay our pay campaign, and leads to us wasting precious time.

The L&E RISC calls for:

1. All RISCs to undertake discussions at their Winter/Spring RISC, with the aim of submitting proposals for a 2026/27 pay claim to the Spring 2026 NISC.

2. The Spring 2026 NISC should discuss and agree a pay claim and submit to the government prior to March 2026. This pay claim should be communicated to members in advance of April 1st, and form the basis for our consultative pay ballot.

3. If the government does not agree a pay deal for April 1st which meets the demands of Unite Health members, the union should immediately commence a consultative ballot of members for strike action, with the aim of concluding this consultative ballot by the end of May.

4. Once the consultative ballot is concluded, Unite Health should initiate industrial action ballots, with the aim of concluding these by the end of July 2026.