At the largest turnout for many years members voted unanimously to support the nomination of Roger Bannister in the Election of General Secretary.
Closing date for nominations is 1st April.
We will be inviting all the succcessful nominees to attend a meeting of members during the election period.
The list of elected Branch Officers & Stewards can be found on the contacts page.
Local Branch Rules and Finance Rules were adopted. A more detailed report will be published later.
Thankyou to all those members who came and made it a vibrant meeting ,its clear the Branch is growing in numbers and in strenth with more activists recruited across the Trust.

A number  of reports of staff shortages have been made across various Directorates caused by staff sickness and a lack of bank staff, this may be a short term seasonal problem.
UNISON seeking to clarrify the rules about exceeding the 60hr week as a last resort.
If your ward is working below its normal staffing levels then Datix incident forms should be completed, if for whatever reason that is not happening and you are concerned please notify your UNISON reps as soon as possible, we will then be able to raise this concern on your behalf without you fearing retribution. It is not safe for the patients or you to be working without adequate staff

UNISON ADVICE TO ALL STAFF: It is clear that the trust lacks adequate in-patient beds and this has caused numerous difficulities, the scale of the problem and the issues faced by staff is not always made clear to the powers that be; Trust policy is clear that patients should not sleep on settee's if they do an incident form should be filled out( its not clear if this applies to overcrowded wards were patients sleep during the day time on the settee's because they have no bed allocated). The use of flexi beds can only be authorised by the Duty Director and we would advise an incident form be logged for this also as there is a claim by that no such request has been made to the on call director for the past two years!.
Any and all sleep outs should also be logged as an incident form, particularly where younger adults are sleeping in MHCOP wards.
If in doubt complete an incident form, again any manager that discourages that practice should be reported to your local UNISON rep.
We understand the culture of fear caused by intimidation & bullying, stewards also experience it, but in the interests of service users, your colleagues and according to your professional obligations these problems need to be identified before they can be resolved.                                                                                                                      

The website has been designed and is run by local UNISON reps and will develope along with our skills!!!
We would welcome your feedback in the comments page.
The Branch position on a range of issues can be found in the news section.
Please forward ideas or articles for the site to Sandra Payne.

Another week and another attack on public services and public-service workers by David Cameron. He has threatened to impose a public-sector pay freeze, if he is elected, to make our members pay for the rich city bankers who messed up the economy. And he says he will tighten anti-trade union laws to prevent members protesting about it.

We already have the toughest trade union laws in Europe and we don’t want to go back to the 1980s where unions were attacked and vilified by the government.

But this is typical of the Tories, as they revert to type. They would far rather pick a fight with the unions than spell out in detail their policies on public services. UNISON will stand up for its members and make sure their work is valued. 
 

 

East London NHS Foundation Trust has been designated as the preferred provider for the Newham PCT and the timetable for expected transfer if all goes to plan is1st Oct 2010
A number of senior staff from the Trust are actively managing this process.
The original breakup of primary care community services away from the Borough Community Trusts, which then created a 3 borough Mental Health specific Trust was never fully supported by a number of organisations including UNISON at the time so it will be good to welcome back colleagues into a seamless service.East London has sufferred excessive multiple re-organisations over the years, anyone taking bets on how long this one will last?

UNISON ADVICE TO ALL STAFF:
The scale and quantity of nursing staff who are not able to take breaks is excessively high according to our reports, this is disputed by various managers; we advise all staff who work without a break or an interupted break to complete a datix incident report. This is very important.
The JSC will be addressing this with the trust and ensuring that staff are either given time off in lieu or paid overtime rates in accordance with the Agenda for Change National Agreement.
Any areas were local managers try to discourage this should be reported to your local UNISON rep.

Its widely stated in the media  & even by our own Trust management thats large scale cuts are coming,, we have heard figures ranging from 5 to 15% but based on what?
At its inception the Foundation Trust has big funding deficits identified in year 4 and 5, that was before the recent Banking fiasco.
The current goverment is publicly saying cuts won't affect front line services, Cameron is saying he is going to invest in the NHS in the short term (no doubt setting it up for privatization and significant redundancies.)
So what is the Truth? It seems lots of changes appear to be based on guesswork. What a terrible way to run health services!!!

"Our UNISON branch is adding its voice to UNISON’s million voices for change campaign to create a fairer society.

UNISON members in this branch care passionately about the services they provide, services that are an essential part of our local community. This branch wants to see changes that put people before profit and public interest before private greed."

London Underground plans to close or cut most of its ticket offices, and to reduce station staffing by over 1,000 staff. To provide customer service and safety, London Underground stations need more staff not fewer. Popular opposition stopped planned ticket office closures in 2008; now we need the same popular opposition to stop them again.
Many UNISON members will be affected particularly shift workers. 
RMT has set up a petition against the job cuts on the 10 Downing Street website. It will take you just a minute or so to add your name, and give a big boost to our campaign to save jobs.

Click here to sign the petition.