‘Fighting for the future of every child’

Health visitors and hundreds of their supporters, including Labour’s shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth, marched through Lincoln’s cobbled streets on Saturday (August 17) to stand up for the profession and the families they serve.

The Lincolnshire County Council health visitors have already taken or planned to take an astonishing 14 days of strike action – Saturday’s demo sent a loud and clear message that they would not back down until their employer the Council listens.

‘Unprecedented’

It’s not an everyday occurrence that health visitors take strike action – in fact it’s unheard of.

Unite rep and health visitor Claire Bradford (pictured below) said this is the first time she’s even been balloted for strike action – she and 84 per cent of the workforce voted in favour.

“It’s really got to crisis point – to have nurses out on strike; out on the picket line,” she told UniteLive. “It’s unprecedented.”

Claire Bradford, Unite Rep and Health Visitor

Claire and dozens of her colleagues on strike are angry that they haven’t had a pay rise since 2017 – their wages have been effectively frozen since they were transferred from the NHS to the Council.

“The Council has refused to honour the Agenda for Change pay scales we were on before being transferred, while at the same time saying we’re ineligible for pay rises in accordance with council workers,” Claire explained.

Unite has calculated that the 58 affected health visitors have lost on average ÂŁ2,000 each year, with some losing as much as ÂŁ3,000 annually.

“I live and work in Lincolnshire County Council – my council tax goes up, the cost of living goes up and my wages aren’t meeting those increases,” Claire highlighted.

Her colleague Unite rep and health visitor Nicola Robbins (pictured below) agreed.

Nicola Robbins, Unite Rep and Health Visitor

“I’m now thousands of pounds worse off than if I was a health visitor working for the NHS,” she told UniteLive.

Two-tier workforce

The LCC health visitors dispute also centres around other actions taken by the Council which are in effect destroying their profession and the service – they’re being forced to accept a junior level role, even though many of them, like both Claire and Nicola, have nearly a decade of experience or more.

This, explained Unite professional officer Jane Beach (pictured below), has a created a two-tier workforce and will strip senior health visitors of many key elements of their role. For example, LCC health visitors can no longer write on-the-spot prescriptions – which places more pressure on already overstretched GP services.

There are also fewer staff able to manage complex safeguarding. LCC’s systematic deskilling of the health visitor role has resulted in a reduced service and has put vulnerable families at risk.

Jane Beach, Lead Professional Officer

“Health visitor caseloads in Lincolnshire are already really high and the council even now has trouble retaining staff,” Beach noted. “If they don’t come to the table and listen, you’ll have lots of senior health visitors who ultimately will have to look elsewhere because they’re stuck on the wages they’ve been on for the last two and a half years and cannot properly carry out their work in line with their level of experience.”

Solidarity

The 58 health visitors taking strike action are far from being alone in their fight for pay justice – hundreds of backers, travelling from all over the country, descended on Lincoln to show their support.

Among these supporters was Camille Tsang (pictured below), a Public Health England worker who’d taken a train up with her colleagues to show their solidarity.

Camille Tsang, Unite Rep

“I’ve got a two year old and my health visitor was really important for me especially in the early days as a first-time parent,” Tsang told UniteLive. “Public Health England staff are being affected by a very similar issue to health visitors — we haven’t had a pay rise since 2013. It’s my view that if you don’t give solidarity you don’t get solidarity. When you have a fightback like we have here today, we can take that energy back with us and spread it to other workplaces.”

Unite executive council member and paramedic Steve Thomson also journeyed to Lincoln to show the health visitors their support.

“Over the years we’ve seen the decimation of their trade,” he said. “Health visitors don’t normally go on strike so this is a big thing for them to come out and take action. To show support from all of us is absolutely vital.”

But among the Lincolnshire health visitors’ greatest supporters was the local community itself. As dozens of local families joined the march, hundreds of onlookers eagerly took Unite leaflets to find out more about the health visitors’ dispute.

Thundering applause greeted the protestors as they marched from Lincoln’s cathedral down through the town’s high street to High Bridge, where a growing crowd gathered for the rally.

Speakers, including local Labour MP Karen Lee, Unite regional officers Paresh Patel and Steve Syson, and Labour’s shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth, as well as a number of health visitors, galvanised the crowd with stirring speeches.

Ashworth (pictured below) vowed that a Labour government would invest in health visiting, and would give every single health visitor a fair pay rise in line with Agenda for Change pay scales.

Jonathan Ashworth MP, Shadow Health Secretary

“This fight isn’t just about the pay and conditions of these health visitors,” he said. “It’s a fight about the future of the National Health Service as well.”

Highlighting the proud history of the NHS, founded on the principle of equality, Ashworth said that it is this same principle that striking health visitors are now so bravely defending.

“A baby born right now in the poorest parts of Lincolnshire will likely live nine years less than a baby born in the wealthiest parts of Lincolnshire,” he said.

“And that baby born in the poorest parts of Lincolnshire or Leicester or in the poorest parts of Nottinghamshire in the old coal fields – that baby is more likely to leave school obese, is more likely to be admitted to hospital, is more likely to need specialist mental health support when they become an adolescent than a baby born in the better off areas,” Ashworth added. “That offends me. I think that’s intolerable.”

“We have to invest in our children’s health and give every child the best possible start in life to narrow these health inequalities. And health visitors are absolutely central to giving all of our children the very best future and healthiest start in life. That is why this dispute is so important. This is about the future of every child in Lincoln and Lincolnshire.”

The striking Unite health visitors will continue in their fight in two upcoming 48-hour stoppages commencing just after midnight on August 27 and September 5.

You can support Lincolnshire’s health visitors by signing their petition and contributing to their strike fund by contacting EM.Finance@unitetheunion.org

• Photos by Mark Harvey