More than 20 radiographers, radiology assistants and associated support staff, members of the GMB employed by Frimley Health have opted to suspend action following their 100% ballot vote to strike.
They are fighting Trust plans to outsource the contract for MRI services at the new £25m Community Diagnostics Centre (CDC) in Slough, which is to open early next year.
However, the resounding ballot result (on a 100% turnout) seems to have stunned Trust bosses, who have now invited the union to a meeting on November 5.
Gary Palmer, GMB Regional Organiser, told The Lowdown there are “indications the Trust might be willing to meet the concerns of the membership”.
Mr Palmer stressed that if the meeting does not deliver an acceptable outcome, the ballot decision will be implemented, and the radiographers, none of whom have threatened any action before, will take strike action.
Staff fear that if the new CDC contract is handed to imaging company InHealth, work from nearby Wexham Park and Heatherwood Hospitals could also be moved there, undermining the core NHS service that provides emergency imaging.
An NHS Frimley Health spokesperson has told the Slough Express an option to ‘extend’ the private service across more of the trust’s sites was available, but this would need ‘full analysis’ and would not be based ‘purely on financial analysis.’
InHealth already provides diagnostic and imaging services to the NHS, with contracts worth over £300 million per year. The GMB has questioned the extent of links between some Frimley consultants and InHealth.
The MRI Team (Heatherwood/Wexham site) in June submitted a detailed argument as to why the use of private contractors to deliver MRI services in Slough CDC would be less efficient, undermine the system for training radiographers in specialist CT and MRI work, lead to potentially damaging divisions in the workforce and result in poorer services for patients.
They also point out that while arguments for outsourcing normally focus on the lack of NHS capital for investment, the private provider delivering MRI services in Frimley Park Hospital is using much older and less efficient scanners than the NHS unit at Wexham and Heatherwood.
Moreover they argue that this use of a private contractor is out of line with most other trusts:
“Historically, private companies have been providing the MRI services for the trust at the Frimley Park Hospital and most colleagues become so used to the model: but that doesn’t mean it is the best. Almost all, if not all the referral, high performing and highly reputable trusts throughout the country have their MRI services provided in-house and our trust is most likely an outlier regarding this.”
Having taken a strong and united stand, the team is now awaiting the outcome of the meeting on November 5.
“These are highly qualified and successful people in quite senior positions in the trust. They’re in fear of losing their jobs; they do not want to go to the private sector. If they had wanted to take jobs in the private sector they could have done so: but they are NHS through and through,” said Mr Palmer.
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