Mid Yorkshire Trust braced for strike action at hospitals in Wakefield, Pontefract and Dewsbury

HOSPITAL workers have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action in protest over job and pay cuts.

Unison said of more than 537 Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust administration and clerical staff balloted, 88 per cent voted for strike action and 96 per cent in favour of action short of strike action.

The union will announce the date of strike action at the trust, which runs hospitals in Wakefield, Pontefract and Dewsbury, next week.

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Jim Bell, Unison Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Organiser, said “Despite notifying the trust of the potential for industrial action over a month ago we have been stunned by the trust’s silence on this matter. Perhaps now that result has been declared they will belatedly enter into meaningful negotiations.

Trust chiefs are seeking to save £630,000 by axing up to 70 posts and ‘downbanding’ 275 jobs.

Earlier this month, the hospital trust’s HR director Graham Briggs, said: “In terms of posts potentially at risk, we expect to have re-deployment opportunities for all of those staff affected.”.

“In principle, we are not forcing anyone out of the organisation that wants to stay and have a job. Anyone that wants to remain in employment will have the opportunity to remain.”