STAFF working at a Worcestershire Acute Hospital are under threat of redundancy following an announcement from one of the NHS’s largest private contractors.
ISS has announced that it will begin a 30-day redundancy consultation process as it seeks ‘efficiencies’ at Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester.
ISS is a company that provides facility management services to NHS hospitals, such as cleaning, hospital porters, security, and catering.
A member of staff for ISS who works at Worcestershire Royal Hospital, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: “The staff are under tremendous pressure, they have given us just 30 days’ notice about this.
“Morale is at an all-time low within the team; we don’t have enough workers as it is, so how can they expect us to accomplish the jobs when individuals are laid off?
“We have roughly 200 cleaning people, 100 porters, 20 to 30 security, and I’m not sure how many food staff.
“This is a serious problem which is going to affect hundreds of people.”
In the document distributed to employees, the ISS stated: “We have carefully considered where savings could be gained and what duties could be incorporated into the larger organization.
“As part of the redundancy consultation process, we will apply a selection criteria to identify which roles will be affected.
“This criteria will help us make fair and transparent decisions.”
The NHS trust that runs Worcestershire Royal Hospital believes the redundancies will not have an impact on its ability to offer health services.
Stephen Collman, acting chief executive of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, stated: “We have a clearly established set of performance measures with ISS for the services they deliver at Worcestershire Royal Hospital, and those measures will not change.
“We will ensure that any job reductions do not impact on patient care by continuing to monitor those performance measures closely.”
ISS was contacted for comment on the announcement, but had not responded by the time of publication.
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