We urge Bedford Hospital not to cut its existing cleaning services or sell them out of the NHS so that domestics can continue to maintain their families as well as their award-winning hygiene standards for patients and staff.
Why is this important?
We, NHS workers and users recognise the hard work domestics do every day to keep the hospital and public safe. We support their fight to keep their jobs in the NHS. When hospital cleaning services are privatised infection rates go up and workers’ pay is cut. We also stand against the hospital’s attempt to make the domestics paid their own nationally agreed NHS pay deal by cutting their bank/overtime hours. Bedford Hospital is targeting its lowest-paid workers, many of whom are migrant women — we believe this is an attack on equality.
