The CSP has joined UNISON and other NHS trade unions in calling for a commitment to supporting and safeguarding NHS staff as health care services begin to be restored following the pandemic.
Seventeen health unions are jointly appealing to the UK governments to support their Blueprint for Return, a nine-point plan aimed at keeping people safe while ensuring services are adequately resourced.
Fast, comprehensive and accessible testing, and the ongoing, ample supply of protective kit are among measures that the unions say must be in place if the NHS is to be opened up safely.
The blueprint also recommends maintaining the two-metre rule, allowing some staff to continue working from home and regularly redeploying those in high-risk areas to ones under less pressure.
Karen Middleton, CSP chief executive, said: ‘As we move into the next phase of tackling Covid-19 and restarting many other NHS services, this blueprint sets out the minimum requirements that will ensure all NHS staff are safe, healthy and properly and fairly remunerated for the critical work they have been doing and will continue to do in the coming months and years’.
The health unions behind the Blueprint for Return represent more than a million staff working in the NHS across the UK – as well as physiotherapy workers they include porters, nurses, radiographers, midwives, 999-call handlers, cleaners, healthcare assistants and paramedics.
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