Nottinghamshire hospital workers set strike date

Strike action will cause disruption to hospital services in the county.

GMB union has today announced that workers at three of Nottinghamshire's biggest hospitals will take strike action later this month.

Employed by private contractor Medirest, over 200 workers at King's Mill, Mansfield Community and Newark Hospital will down tools for 24 hours on Friday 17 May.

Medirest, a major private provider of facilities and services across the Nottinghamshire's Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust, are facing anger from workers due to the less favourable terms and conditions they receive compared to directly employed NHS staff.

The breaking point came after NHS employees received a covid recovery bonus payment, which was not applied to staff in the hospitals employed by Medirest.

Cameron Mitchell, GMB Organiser, said:

"Strike day will no doubt see huge disruption to the services at these three hospitals.

"Medirest workers are being treated like second class staff compared to workers employed directly by the NHS.

"Just like their colleagues on NHS contracts, they worked through Covid delivering key services to patents; yet they are yet to be paid the Covid recovery bonus they were promised.

"These workers are demanding the dignity and recognition they deserve; it's a disgrace that Medirest bosses have pushed them to this".