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Campaign For Safe Healthcare Supported By Unison Conference

Campaign to ensure FFP3 masks are provided in all healthcare scenarios

Protection against Covid-19 within health and social care can be poor, putting people at risk, especially those who are already at high clinical risk. This is very concerning, and made worse by recent decisions of some NHS Trusts to remove mask mandates. Hospitals, clinics and care homes should be places where we should be able access healthcare safely. The NHS constitution in England says we all have a right to safe healthcare.

The Covid Pledge campaign and Clinically Vulnerable Families have produced a template letter and a factsheet, with the support of Doctors in Unite, the Hazards Campaign and Independent SAGE, to help people request safer care.  Copies and links to the letter and factsheet are below.

Remember you are not alone in this. Many people are in the same situation and lots of people have expressed concerns about it and are demanding proper protections. There are a number of organisations (Clinically Vulnerable Families, Long Covid Support, etc.) campaigning on this issue; consider making contact with them to share your concerns and get mutual support. Being able to access safe healthcare is a fundamental right for all of us.

Some people are at higher risk than others, but everyone is potentially at risk, so safe health care for all will protect everyone.

They have also produced a guide, with advice about how to write the letter, how to give feedback and how to make a complaint if you are not happy.  This is also below; please read this before writing to your healthcare provider. 

Associated health care action Unison safety rep Stuart Jordan  moved this motion which was unanimously passed at Unison Health Conference

'Covid-19 safety in the NHS

Conference notes the November 2022 Industrial Injuries Advisory Council report that found health and social care workers in the UK are “have been exposed to significantly increased risk of Covid-19 infection.”

Conference further notes

- that the UK Health Security Agency (formerly Public Health England) and by extension NHS Trusts were some of the last public health institutions in the world to formally acknowledge that Covid-19 is transmitted by the airborne route.

- that many low-paid outsourced workers operating within the NHS lacked the job security or financial means to follow public health advice if they had to isolate thus increasing the risk of infectious workers attending the workplace.

- that infection control measures across the NHS are not consistent and some Trusts have done better than others at mitigating the risk of infection.

Conference believes incidence of hospital acquired Covid-19 infection and other transmissible diseases could be greatly reduced through

a) ensuring all workers operating in NHS buildings have secure contracts of employment and rights to full sick pay

b) consistent application of airborne precautions, namely FFP3 masks for all Covid-19 positive patient care, adequate ventilation or, where this is not reasonably practicable, air filtration units.

Conference resolves to campaign for full sick pay for all and airborne precautions using our rights under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

We ask the Service Group Executive to produce a campaign toolkit for health and safety reps that forces employers to recognise that sick workers in the workplace are a workplace hazard and that airborne pathogens require airborne precautions.

We call on the Service Group Executive to run a survey of branches collecting data on mask-wearing policy, sick pay arrangements for outsourced workers and use of CO2 monitors, ventilation upgrades and air cleaning devices with the aim of publishing this information and campaigning for a levelling up of Covid-safety measures across the NHS.

We call on the national union to contact sister healthworkers unions in other countries and publish information about infection control measures used by other healthworkers across the world.'

Finally, Covid Pledge UK website makes it clear that:

"Coronavirus has not gone away. It poses risks for all of us, and we are still discovering the full extent of the impact of long-covid. We will see future strains of the virus and there is no guarantee that they will be milder or that reinfections wont cause serious ill health.

Covid infection remains high but legal obligations (notably to self-isolate when testing positive for Covid) have been removed.  It is critical that employers abide by best public health advice, that they do urge and support workers to stay at home when infected, and that the public know that they will not be served by staff who are carrying the virus.

It makes good public health sense to ensure that the shops and restaurants and offices we use are properly ventilated and that no-one is working while infected. But it also makes sound economic sense to give the public confidence that they can use these spaces in safety".

The page for the campaign  https://covidpledge.uk/campaign-for-safe-healthcare includes links  to all the documents.

You can sign the petition to the UK Government on the requirement of face masks in all healthcare scenario, by clicking on the image above left.

Source: Hazards Campaign / Covid Pledge / unionsafety

 

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