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Junior doctors on strike in Harrogate have pledged to continue to stage walk outs until the government comes to the negotiating table.
Members of the British Medical Association are striking for 72 hours as of today after negotiations with ministers over a pay increase broke down.
Doctors based at Harrogate District Hospital set up a picket line on Wetherby Road this morning.
The move comes as the BMA described the latest government pay offer of a 5% increase for junior doctors as “in no way credible”.
It has called for a 35% pay hike in order to meet successive years of below inflation rises.
Junior doctors from the British Medical Association on strike in Harrogate.
Antony Antypas, one of the junior doctors on strike in Harrogate this morning, said some of his colleagues were considering leaving the profession due to pay.
He said:
“We have got to a position where we have lost a lot of our pay.
“There are staff that want to leave their job and go somewhere else. But we do not want to get to that point.”
He added that staff were “constantly fire fighting” against operation waiting lists and emergency department waiting times. He called for a better offer for junior doctors in order to “retain staff”.
Read more:
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- £3.5m gym for cancer patients to open in Harrogate
Mr Antypas, who studied at University of Nottingham and is a second year foundation doctor at Harrogate hospital, added that junior doctors would be “prepared to continue to strike” until their demands are met.
The move comes as officials at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust has urged patients to attend appointments as normal unless contacted to reschedule.
However, the trust warned that some outpatient appointments may be cancelled at short notice during the three-day strike.
A spokesperson said:
Striking teachers to hold Harrogate rally on Thursday“We understand this may cause our patients and their families to worry about how services will be delivered during this period. The safety of our patients is our primary concern and we have developed plans for the proposed action and its impact on our services, patients and staff. We are working hard to prioritise resources to protect emergency treatment, critical care, neonatal care, maternity, and trauma, and ensure we prioritise patients who have waited the longest for elective care and cancer surgery.
“To prioritise emergency care and to keep all patients safe, we are having to make changes to some of our outpatient and theatre services on the days of industrial action. We are aiming to keep as many outpatient appointments and elective activity across the three days of strike action, but there is a risk that these may be cancelled at short notice.
“Patients should continue to attend appointments as planned unless contacted to reschedule.”
The National Education Union is to hold a rally in Harrogate on Thursday as part of a day of national strike action.
Teachers are due to strike on Thursday this week and Tuesday next week as part of their ongoing pay dispute with the government.
The action has been called after 98% of NEU members rejected the government’s latest pay offer.
Thursday’s rally by Britain’s largest teachers union will be held at Cambridge Crescent between 11am and noon and will include guest speakers from unions and the education sector.
Gary McVeigh-Kaye (pictured above), North Yorkshire branch secretary for the NEU, said:
“The government’s recent offer was an insult and in no way represented a serious negotiated settlement.
“Offering our members a 4.3% pay increase, whilst inflation is still over 10%, does not even begin to address the real terms pay cut of 24% most teachers have experienced under 13 years of Tory government.
“To add insult to injury, this pay increase was expected to be taken from already stretched school budgets.”
Mr McVeigh said the NEU had attracted 60,000 new members since its January strike ballot and called on the government to engage in “serious negotiations”.
Picket lines have been formed outside many schools in the Harrogate district on strike days.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has urged teachers to “get back to the classroom” and said a 4.5 per cent average pay rise would see the starting salary for a new teacher rise to £30,000.
Read more:
- Almost 500 appointments cancelled at Harrogate hospital due to junior doctors’ strike
- Union escalates dispute over transfer of Harrogate council staff
No normal service on Harrogate and Knaresborough trains until January 9
Rail operator Northern has warned of ongoing disruption until January 9.
The company, which operates the Leeds to York line that passes through Harrogate and Knaresborough, has published a calendar highlighting its travel guidance to customers over Christmas and the New Year.
It shows the next day of normal service is not for another 21 days.
Northern has blamed the situation predominantly on the RMT union, even though it only has strikes planned from January 3 to 7. However, an RMT national overtime ban from December 18 to January 2 has also affected services.
The union has accused the government of interfering in negotiations with Network Rail to reach a settlement on jobs, pay and conditions.
Tricia Williams, chief operating officer at Northern, said:
“The main cause of the disruption remains industrial action by the RMT union and we can only apologise to our customers for the inconvenience it will cause to their journeys.”
Northern’s new timetable came into effect just before this extended period of disruption, so it is advising customers to use the new Check My Timetable feature on its website to see the changes specific to their local station.
Northern is the second largest train operator in the UK, with nearly 2,500 services a day to more than 500 stations across the North of England.
Read more:
- Long-term roadworks to affect villages near Knaresborough
- Harrogate hospital pledges ‘minimal disruption’ as nurses’ strike looms
Stray Views: My dog was banned from church — this is wrong!
Stray Views is a weekly column giving you the chance to have your say on issues affecting the Harrogate district. It is an opinion column and does not reflect the views of the Stray Ferret. Send your views to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.
My dog was banned from church – this is wrong
My gorgeous bit of fur, a well behaved six-year-old French bulldog, was asked to leave a well known church in Harrogate this afternoon. She could have stayed if she was an assistance/ guide dog on a lead and wearing a jacket. ‘Ordinary’ dogs are not allowed as their allergens may cause suffering to churchgoers. Do the leads and jackets stop allergens… no!
Belle has been visiting the sessions most weeks this year, to no known detriment to the church community. Has there been an anaphylactic reaction to a person during or after our sessions? Probably not.
Belle is adored by the churchgoers. They love giving her treats, petting and interacting with her. Pat-a-dog activities are a welcome therapy with the elderly and dementia sufferers. As a nurse for over 30 years, and having been a matron/ manager of care homes, I have seen the happiness this interaction brings.
Are dogs not God’s creation like us? Is a house of God not a sanctuary and place of peace? Are all of God’s creatures not welcome?
Although Belle is not officially a therapy dog, she helps me overcome anxiety/panic attacks and kept my mental health and wellbeing from spiralling into a black hole during the covid crisis. She continues to support me and bring joy.
Chrissy Richardson, Scotton
Read more:
- ‘Badly let down’ Woodfield school closure confirmed
- Diners to eat blindfolded to raise funds for Harrogate guide dogs
Politics of Woodfield school closure should not be forgotten
As branch secretary of the National Education Union, it is with great sadness that I have watched Woodfield Community Primary School, in the Bilton area of Harrogate, move towards closure.
The community of Bilton deserves a thriving primary school and over the course of the past decade the school has undergone several traumatic events that led to a lack of parental confidence. Rather than working with the community to help the school re-establish its reputation, it seems that far too many agencies involved have sought to sweep things under the carpet and not give the school staff and the local community the support they deserved to keep the school functioning.
I read with interest Cllr Paul Haslam’s comments in which he argues that the school should not be closing, due to the growth in population in Harrogate. I agree with Cllr Haslam about the need to keep Woodfield school open, but I do take issue with the fact that it is the Tory party, a party he represents, whose policy of forcing schools to become academies that has been the final death knell for the school.
The behaviour of the Department for Education is akin to the school bully who get their own way by any means necessary. Every member of the Tory party, from the Prime Minister to the Andrew Jones MP, to ward councillors are culpable in the decimation of our education system and schools such as Woodfield pay the heavy price for their neo-liberal ideology.
Over the past months the NEU has run a campaign to save Woodfield School. A campaign to which Tory councillors were happy to say they supported in words but then failed to back it up in gestures. When children are having to travel increased distances and crossing over catchment area borders to get the education they deserve I hope those local councillors, and the local MP, hang their heads in shame.
Mostly, I feel for the future generations of children in Bilton who will not be able to attend what was, not so long ago, a thriving, caring and wonderful educational setting.
Gary McVeigh-Kaye
Some staff at Harrogate District Hospital are selling their annual leave and applying for further financial help in a desperate bid to make ends meet.
The hospital is allowing NHS workers to trade time off for extra payments until the end of the year, while a hardship fund has also been set up to help with the soaring costs of energy, fuel and food.
This comes at a time when staff are set to vote on strike action over a below-inflation pay offer which unions have described as another real-terms pay cut.
Jonathan Coulter, chief executive of Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust, told a board meeting today that he had “always been against” staff selling annual leave, but the cost of living crisis now meant that providing support was “absolutely vital”.
He said:
“My justification for this is that the financial position of some staff is putting them under more stress than the benefit of having a holiday.”
A total of 17 staff have so far applied for extra payments instead of time off, while 271 applications have been made to the hospital’s hardship fund, which is offering grants of up to £500.
Read more:
- Harrogate hospital plans new £14m operating theatres
- Hospital ‘not anticipating’ service cuts due to energy price surge
Wallace Sampson, hospital trust board member and chief executive of Harrogate Borough Council, said he had “mixed feelings” about staff being able to sell annual leave as he believes it is “very much needed” to help with their wellbeing.
In response, Mr Coulter said he agreed but this was the preference of some workers and that a five-day limit on the amount of time off that can be traded would ensure staff do get some down time.
He said:
“There is an absolute maximum of five days, so staff can’t sell all of their annual leave.
“We have agreed the policy for this year as a one-off, partly recognising that people have a lot of annual leave because of covid.
“We will need to review the initiatives, but at the moment they are absolutely vital.”
Winter strike possible
His comments come as strike action could span across several months this winter after the Royal College of Midwives union notified hospital bosses that it will ballot its members over pay.
Other unions including GMB and Unison are also said to be making preparations for a vote.
The prospect of staff striking at what is always a busy time for under-strain services in winter has been described as “worrying” by senior officials at Harrogate District Hospital, which has begun making contingency plans.
Around 100 of the hospital’s lowest-paid staff will see an uplift from a rise in the legal minimum wage to £10.90 in October.
However, Dr Suzanne Tyler, executive director at the RCM union, said the government needed to go further and give all workers a better pay rise after its members rejected a 4% increase offer.
Dr Tyler said in a statement:
Striking RMT union pickets Harrogate train station“Our members have spoken and just like us they believe a below inflation pay award is not good enough, they deserve more.
“The results and turnout speaks volumes about the feelings of a fragile, exhausted, and undervalued workforce, because taking industrial action is always the very last resort for midwives and maternity staff.
“They obviously now see no other alternative to getting a fair and just pay award from their governments.”
Members of the RMT union organised a picket line outside Harrogate train station this morning.
No trains are expected to operate today from Harrogate and Knaresborough due to a national strike called by the RMT.
Some 40,000 members of the union are taking part in the industrial action.
Four of them arrived on Station Parade at Harrogate at about 7am this morning.
Speaking to the Stray Ferret at about 9am, they said they had received a lot of support from passers-by, with motorists tooting their horns and passers-by giving them drinks.
They said they didn’t want to be on strike and regretted the disruption but felt it was necessary because of concerns about pay, conditions and job security.
Trains are expected to resume tomorrow in Harrogate and Knaresborough.
Read more:
- Traffic and Travel Alert: No trains from Harrogate and Knaresborough amid rail staff strike
- Harrogate and Knaresborough trains to Leeds to be reinstated in December
Harrogate commuters braced for ‘inconvenient’ train strikes
As train services prepare to wind down today ahead of the looming rail strike, the Stray Ferret went to Harrogate station this morning to speak to commuters.
No trains will run between York and Leeds on Tuesday and Thursday this week, which will affect rail passengers in Harrogate and Knaresborough.
Further strike action is planned on Saturday and rail operator Northern is urging people not to travel on trains between tomorrow and Sunday.
No replacement buses are being put on.
The RMT union has called the strike over pay and conditions. It will see thousands of drivers, signal operators and guards walk out.
Commuters in Harrogate said they had been forced to change their working days this week or work from home. Some have had to rearrange or cancel meetings.
Kevin Dalton told us:
“I’m not a regular train user as I work from home most of the time.
“But I had a meeting this week and I’ve had to rearrange to today just so I can make it. The idea of driving into Leeds or York for 9am just isn’t worth thinking about.”
For others still having to travel into the office, the additional petrol and taxi fees were a concern.
Read more:
- No trains for two days in Harrogate this week as strike action hits
- Council shelves Knaresborough and Ripon travel plans
Kayleigh, who works at Hornbeam Park and asked not to publish her surname, said:
“I’ve had to arrange for someone to come and pick me up and bring me home each day.
“It is an inconvenience, I work with people from York and Leeds so they’ve either got to work from home or spend two and a half hours on the bus.”
Another commuter, Diane Hitchen, sympathised with the strikers and said the difficulties it is causing highlighted how much rail workers do. She added:
“I have a lot of teacher friends who have taken strike action before so I understand why.
“Clearly rail workers feel they have to make an impact for their requests to be met.”
Northern has said it will publish its Sunday timetable shortly.
Further details on how the strike will affects services are available here.
Four-day union congress in Harrogate draws to closeA demonstration by ambulance workers was among the highlights of a major trade union conference in Harrogate this week.
About 500 delegates from the GMB union have been in the town for the annual congress.
It is the first time the union, which represents over 500,000 members, has held its major event in Harrogate since 1928.
The congress, which ends tomorrow, began with ambulance workers demonstrating against the ‘worst ever’ pressures they are under.
The union said calls had almost doubled to 14 million a year since 2010 and the average response time for serious calls had increased from 20 minutes to 51 minutes in the year to April 2022.
Rachel Harrison, GMB national officer, said:
“Ambulance workers have faced more than a decade of cuts while demand has almost doubled.
“It’s no wonder they are leaving in droves while the service itself is teetering on the brink of collapse.
“Our members face unbelievable stress and even abuse while they do their best to administer care and save lives.
“We need urgent investment across the health and care services, otherwise we risk an unprecedented crisis.”
Read more:
- Harrogate district unemployment figures remain low
- Fire Brigades Union ‘seriously concerned’ over cuts to Harrogate service
- Unions call for Harrogate council staff to get £2,000 pay rise
British Gas engineers in Harrogate strike over pay and conditions
Six British Gas engineers from Harrogate have been on strike today over pay and working conditions.
The members of the GMB union held flags and banners by the Prince of Wales roundabout.
It was their eighth day of industrial action this winter. Further strikes are planned this month and February.
They claim the Centrica-owned company is asking employees to sign new contracts before March 31 on unfavourable terms.
About 20 local engineers employed in gas service and repair, smart metering, installations, electrical and white goods are affected.
One of the strikers, Jonathan Barker, told the Stray Ferret that thousands of British Gas employees across the country were taking similar action today.
He said:
“We’re just normal blokes who want to earn a bit of money and have a normal life.
“We don’t want to be on strike in winter, it’s our busiest time but we’ve been forced into it.”
Read more
A British Gas spokesperson said:
“We’re operating in an incredibly competitive market and British Gas has lost too many jobs and too many customers over recent years. Our business needs to change to survive and protect 20,000 jobs.
“We know change is difficult but we have offered a fair deal that has been negotiated over 300 hours with unions – we’re not cutting base pay and pensions are protected.
“Eighty-three percent of our employees have already agreed to the new terms and we believe the vast majority of our workforce understand that the company needs to change.”