Open letter from staff-side to NBS management

This letter was presented to the NHSBT board of directors in early June, officially declaring the unions' intention to ballot NBS members on national industrial action against the proposed strategy.

Open letter to the NHSBT board

Staff side statement

We the staff side are extremely concerned with the direction the directors and senior management are taking this organisation as a result of the proposed change strategy.

It must be acknowledged that scientific staff, particularly those under 40, have left, are leaving or are considering leaving the organisation and as time moves on the ability of the existing centres to maintain their current working practices will be based purely on the age pattern of the staff in each department and centre.

This will be repeated in the RCI labs as closure of their departments draws nearer. This is a direct result of the strategy and plans announced 6 months ago.
We could soon be in a position where having 3 testing centres is the only available option left. All of the other centres would have become unable to maintain their current working practices having insufficient staffing levels to carry out the testing. The service would be left in serious jeopardy especially as the remaining centres would also have insufficient numbers of staff to take on extra work at short notice.

There appears to be a cavalier attitude from the senior management to the staff sides’ response to the strategy. There is very little support for the strategy from managers and staff side as well as the Office of Government and Commerce who have also expressed the same concerns over the issues of staff leaving and the possibility that the service will be unable to maintain its current service level agreements. How is the organisation going to carry out this restructuring without failing hospitals, patients and the staff.

The staff side have responded to the strategy and reiterated our position, that 3 processing and 3 testing sites is not the answer, and we urge the senior managers and directors to make changes to the strategy while the is still time so that we can maintain our existing services to both hospitals and patients.

As a result the staff side give notice that unless there is a significant change in the strategy the staff side will have no option but to ballot the membership on the basis that there has been no meaningful consultation and that there is a need to protect the services we currently provide.