NHS - Blood money
WORKERS, JULY 2007 ISSUE
Despite continuing opposition from Unison, Unite (formerly the TGWU and Amicus unions) and the Royal College of Nursing, the NHS Blood and Transplant Service is continuing with its threat to cut 600 highly skilled staff and close seven out of ten blood processing centres.
The joint trade unions held a further day of demonstrations and protests across the endangered sites (Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Southampton, Brentwood and Tooting) on 15 June.
The employer's plan is to reduce blood centres to Bristol, Manchester and London. This will leave whole tranches of England – the Midlands, North East, East Anglia – totally denuded.
The proposals are financially driven and have no bearing on health care, flexibility of service provision or counter-proposals made by the people who know best – the staff who run and provide the service.