Blood workers see red over job cuts

Another press release from Unite (Amicus section)

Friday, 15th June 2007

Hundreds of Unite and Unison members working in the NHS Blood and
Transplant (NHSBT) service will today (Friday, 15 June) hold lunch
time protests at Blood Centres across England, to protest against
swingeing job cuts and closures.

Workers fear that plans to cut more than 600 jobs and axe seven out of
ten processing sites will put lives at risk and place enormous strain
on the workers at the three remaining site, who will have to cope with
the demand from hospitals across England and Wales.

Owen Granfield, Unite (Amicus section) Regional Officer and Staff Side
Chair, said:

"These proposals mean compulsory redundancy for many of the National
Blood Service's skilled scientists and technicians. As well as the
cuts in the testing and processing of donated blood there are also
cuts and redundancies for staff dealing with rare platelet antibodies,
red cell investigations and reagent production. We cannot stand by and
see the service cut to meet financial targets.

"The NHS and the nation has invested millions in training these
hundreds of technical and scientific staff and now proposes to just
dispose of them."

Staff Side Secretary, Bill Campbell, said:

"The time for talking is rapidly coming to an end. Despite putting
forward robust arguments and making constructive counter proposals,
management has not budged an inch on the plan. Unless we see some
serious proposals from management, we will be left with no alternative
but to consider a ballot for strike action.

"Today's lunchtime demonstrations reflect the deep anger among staff
who are already stretched to the limit. The National Blood Service
should look again at these proposals and make their decisions on what
will help to save the most lives – not what will save the most money."

As a result of the closures the service will lose the flexibility and
responsiveness to short-term fluctuations in demand that local
processing centres provide. In addition the closures will mean blood
products with a very short shelf life will have to be moved long
distances from collection sites to processing centres and back again
to issuing centres, leaving supply dependent on highly congested and
unreliable road networks.

The cuts will leave massive holes in the coverage of processing
centres, particularly in the Midlands and North East. Depending on
just three centres will also put patients in jeopardy in the event of
an emergency situation such as a terrorist attack or in case of flood,
fire or pandemic in any one of these huge urban centres.

-Ends-

For further information please contact Owen Granfield on 07768 693942
or Ashraf Choudhury in the Unite Press Office on 020 740 8914 or 07980
224761 or Anne Mitchell Unison Press Officer on 020 7383 0717.