‘It is overwhelmingly women, frankly, black women’: The low-paid NHS staff who missed out on COVID bonus
Thousands of staff who risked their lives working in hospitals during the pandemic still haven’t been given the COVID bonus awarded to NHS staff last year.
Generally, it is lower-paid staff who have missed out, and campaigners say a high proportion are female and from ethnic minorities.
Sky News has surveyed outsourcing companies which employ cleaners, porters and caterers within the NHS and found while some have paid their staff the £1,600 award, others haven’t.
Much depends on what kind of contract the worker is under as to whether the company was able to claim money off the Department of Health. Unions say this is symptomatic of how staff in hospitals are losing their rights.
Dima Hooper, 57, is a member of the catering staff at Homerton Hospital in east London, employed by outsourcing company ISS.
In 2021, she nearly died from COVID and ended up on a ventilator in intensive care at the Royal Free Hospital in north London where Sky News filmed her recovery.
Dima Hooper, an NHS caterer, told Sky News in 2021 she was ‘just lucky I’m alive’
Dima who has been left with long COVID says she “definitely” contracted the illness at work, and it is unfair that she hasn’t been paid the bonus.
She said: “A lot of us risked our lives during that time, working six days a week, 12 hours a day through that period.
“Some people lost their lives. Some people can’t work anymore. I just think it’s not fair because we (were) all there at the same time, doing the work.”
Hospitals were the trenches of the COVID battle and anyone who witnessed it would remember the caterers delivering food to wards, the cleaners rubbing every surface armed with antiseptic spray, and the porters keeping spirits up, but also taking the dead to the hospital morgue.
It is these staff, who are often on non-NHS contacts, who are therefore excluded from the bonus.
Some of Dima’s fellow caterers at Homerton did get the bonus, if their contract dated back before catering was outsourced, and they remained on what is called an “Agenda for Change” contract.
ISS say their staff “typically” don’t qualify, and it’s the same for many other big companies in this market.
Outside Homerton Hospital, we spoke to a group of campaigners calling for the work to be taken back in-house, with a petition signed by over 500 staff members at the hospital, outraged their colleagues didn’t get the bonus.
Retired Union worker George Binette said: “It is overwhelmingly women and overwhelmingly, frankly, black women who have not received this bonus, despite the fact that they were facing many of the same risks in terms of contracting the virus during the course of the pandemic.”
Occupational therapist Diana Swingler, who got the bonus, added: “They are a crucial part of the team. We are all one team, and that’s why it’s all the more shocking that they’re being treated differently and unequally.”
ISS told Sky News: “Typically ISS employees are outside the scope of government NHS benefits, however, eligible employees at Homerton University Hospital have received a non-consolidated payment in line with additional funding and criteria from the government.
“We value the contribution of every ISS team member and remain in discussions with relevant parties to extend this to all ISS employees working alongside the NHS.”
We approached other companies in this field. Serco which supports 18 hospitals with porters, cleaners and caterers says it has paid staff “where appropriate funding has been provided”.
Another big player in hospital catering Aramark UK has “not received any government funding to pay bonuses” to their NHS employees.
Yet, all 1,675 Essentia staff working at Guys and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust got the bonus because they are “part of the trust workforce”.
G4S said it would not comment.
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Mitie, which works with over 40 NHS Trusts, told us: “We have always argued strongly on behalf of our colleagues for parity of treatment with their NHS peers and we’re pleased that funding was confirmed for this payment earlier this year.”
The GMB Union says this only happened after 97% of GMB members at St George’s Hospital, south London, backed action in an indicative strike ballot.
It all adds up to a confusing hotchpotch, where it seems a lot depends on what kind of contact staff members have and how closely linked it is to the NHS “Agenda For Change” pay deal for those directly employed by the NHS.
Rachel Harrison from the GMB Union believes “tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of workers”, have not got the bonus.
She added: “Ultimately, it is down to the extent of privatisation across the NHS and that is why we are urging the new Labour government to honour their pledge and get everybody back in-house and back on NHS contacts.”
GMB Union’s Rachel Harrison calls on Labour to honour the COVID bonus for all NHS workers
The Department of Health and Social Care says it provided funding for over 27,000 staff in non-NHS organisations to receive the bonus, but it’s clear that thousands still didn’t qualify under the terms of their contracts.
A DHSC spokesperson said: “Independent organisations providing NHS services are responsible for their own terms and conditions of employment, including pay scales and any non-consolidated pay awards they choose to make.
“Non-NHS organisations were able to apply to be reimbursed for the non-consolidated payments to eligible staff after the department stepped in to provide funding to help deliver them.”
Outside Homerton Hospital, caterer Sandra McCarthy, who didn’t get the bonus, summed up the feeling.
Describing the weeks that people came on to their doorsteps to clap for NHS workers, she said “It’s like people clapped for the others and left us out.”
Six teenagers have been arrested after a 13-year-old girl was found with multiple stab wounds on a roadside near Hull.
Police said she was found around 6.50am on the A63 in Hessle with “life-threatening injuries” including “lacerations to her neck, abdomen, chest and back”.
Four boys and two girls – aged between 14 and 17 – were quickly arrested in a nearby wooded area and are being questioned on suspicion of attempted murder.
Members of the public came to the girl’s aid before emergency services arrived, Humberside Police said.
Detective Superintendent Simon Vickers said they “believe the attackers knew the victim” and the circumstances are still being investigated.
“The girl remains in hospital in critical condition and her family are being supported by officers at this difficult time,” he added.
The boys arrested are aged 14, 15, 16 and 17, and the girls 14 and 15.
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Cordons are in place around a wooded area off Ferriby High Road while investigations continue.
Police said they would have an increased presence in the area over the weekend and have asked anyone with information or video to get in touch, or contact Crimestoppers anonymously.
UK
Robert Jenrick or Kemi Badenoch to be crowned Tory leader today – but whoever wins contest faces daunting task
The next leader of the Conservative party will be announced today, following a run-off between Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick.
The winner will replace Rishi Sunak as the leader of the opposition, after he led the party to a crushing election defeat in July, losing almost two thirds of its MPs.
His successor faces the daunting task of rebuilding the Tory party after years of division, scandal and economic turbulence, which saw Labour eject them from power by a landslide.
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Voting by tens of thousands of party members, who need to have joined at least 90 days ago, closed on Thursday. Both candidates have claimed the result will be close.
The Conservatives do not disclose how many members the party has, but the figure was about 172,000 in 2022, and research suggests they are disproportionately affluent, older white men.
Both candidates are seen as on the party’s right wing. Kemi Badenoch, 44, is the former trade secretary, who was born in London to middle-class Nigerian parents but spent most of her childhood in Lagos.
After moving back to the UK aged 16, she stayed with a family friend while taking her A-levels, and has spoken of her time working at McDonald’s as a teenager.
Having studied computer science at Sussex University, she then worked as a software engineer before entering London politics and becoming MP for Saffron Walden in Essex in 2017.
Ms Badenoch prides herself on being outspoken and has said the Conservatives lost because they “talked right and governed left”. But her critics paint her as abrasive and prone to misspeaking.
At the Conservative Party conference, a crucial staging post in the contest, she began her speech which followed three other male candidates by saying: “Nice speeches, boys, but I think you all know I’m the one everyone’s been waiting for.”
Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch. Pics: PA
Her rival Robert Jenrick, 42, has been on a political journey. Elected as a Cameroon Conservative in 2014, he was one of the rising star ministers who swung behind Boris Johnson as prime minister and was later a vocal supporter of Rishi Sunak.
But he resigned as immigration minister in December 2023, claiming Sunak’s government was breaking its promises to cut immigration.
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The MP for Newark in Nottinghamshire says he had a “working-class” upbringing in Wolverhampton. He read history at Cambridge University and worked at Christie’s auctioneers before winning a by-election.
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October: Jenrick v Badenoch for Tory leadership
After a long ministerial career where he was seen as mild-mannered, he is said to have been “radicalised” by his time at the Home Office and has focused his campaign on a promise to slash immigration and leave the European Convention on Human Rights to “stand for our nation and our culture, our identity and our way of life”.
He has put forward more policies than his rival, but attracted criticism for some of his claims – including that Britain’s former colonies owe the Empire a “debt of gratitude”.
A survey of party members by the website Conservative Home last week put Kemi Badenoch in the lead by 55 points to Mr Jenrick’s 31 with polls still open.
James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary and seen as a more centrist candidate was knocked out of the race last month. One of his supporters, the Conservative peer and former Scotland leader Ruth Davidson, has predicted neither Mr Jenrick nor Ms Badenoch will stay as leader until the next general election.
She told the Sky News Electoral Dysfunction podcast: “I’ve now voted for Robert Jenrick, who I don’t think will win. I struggle to believe that the person that’s the next leader of the Tory party is going to take us into the next election in five years’ time and I struggle to believe that they’re going to leave the leadership at a time of their own choosing.”
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‘All candidates should get job in shadow cabinet’
Henry Hill, deputy editor of ConHome, said the contest which Tory officials decided would take almost three months, has not led to enough scrutiny – because the MP rounds of voting took so long.
“We know much less [about them] than I think we should”, he said. “The problem with this contest is the party decided to go really long, but at the same time, they confined the membership vote – with just the final two – to just three weeks, and ballots dropped halfway through that process.
“We had months and months with loads of candidates in the race, but also that was the MP rounds and you’d think the MPs will have a chance to get to know these people already. For the actual choice the members are going to be making, there has been barely any time to scrutinise that.
He added: “I think the party remembers Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak taking weeks to take lumps out of each other in 2022 and wanted to avoid that. But it means the two campaigns haven’t really been attacking each other and that tends to be how you expose people’s weaknesses.”
(L-R) Ms Badenoch, Mr Jenrick, and previous leadership rivals James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat at the Conservative Party conference. Pic: PA
After 14 years in government under five prime ministers, it is not since David Cameron in 2005 that the party has elected a leader to go into opposition – with a long road until the next general election.
Veteran ex-MP Graham Brady, who served as chair of the backbench 1922 committee, told Sky News that the position was more hopeful than after the 1997 landslide.
He said: “The biggest challenge for a leader of the opposition in these circumstances is just to be heard, to be noticed. I came into the House of Commons in 1997 at the time of that huge Blair landslide.
“We worked very, very hard in opposition during that parliament, and at the next general election [in 2001], we made a net gain of one seat.
“Now, there is a huge difference between now and 1997. The Blair government remained very popular and Tony Blair personally remained very popular through that whole parliament and beyond. And in 100 days or so, Keir Starmer has already fallen way behind.
“So I think we’ve got a great opportunity. I don’t think we’re up against an insuperable challenge, but it’s a big challenge.”
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Grant Shapps’ warning for next Tory leader
Kate Fall, now Baroness Fall, worked with Lord Cameron in opposition and later in Downing Street when he was prime minister in the coalition government. She said the next leader needed to keep the party “united and disciplined”.
“The first thing is to think about why we lost. The second thing is what do we have to say? Then they need to be agile, they need to be reactive, but pick their fight, not fight over everything. They also need to get out and about,” she said.
Lord Cameron travelled around the country holding question and answer sessions called Cameron Direct. “When you’re prime minister, you can’t do that as much as you like. But as leader of the opposition you can get out, talk to people, we thought it was very trendy to have a podcast and so on.”
She says this week’s budget gives the next leader “an ideological divide” to get into, but warns that the next leader must not risk alienating former Tories who switched to Labour and the Lib Dems.
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The leader of the opposition will cut their teeth at weekly Prime Minister’s Questions sessions opposite Sir Keir Starmer and respond to set piece events such as the budget.
They will need to get the party’s campaign machine ready for the local elections in England in May 2025, Scottish elections in 2026 and the next general election expected in 2029.
The NHS has begun trialling a new iPhone adapter which can check whether someone has throat cancer.
It is hoped the device will allow thousands of patients to be given the all-clear from the disease within hours – rather than days or weeks – as well as helping to detect cases early.
People suspected of having throat cancer are usually given an endoscopy, which involves a long, thin tube with a camera inside being passed through their mouth or nose to look inside their body.
The endoscope-i adapter, which can be attached to one of Apple’s smart phones, includes a 32mm lens endoscope eyepiece and an accompanying app.
It allows nurses to capture endoscopy footage in high definition before sharing it with specialists who can report back to patients directly.
The NHS said an initial pilot by the North Midlands University Hospitals NHS Trust had helped reassure more than 1,800 low-risk patients that they did not have throat cancer, with those tested receiving their results “within 23 hours”.
The gadget also helped detect cancer in around one in a hundred of those tested.
Officials said no cancers were missed during the trial.
A spokesperson said it could be used more widely across the country “in diagnostic centres and community settings”, reducing the need for patients to go to hospitals, freeing up resources and reducing waiting times.
Results from the device can be sent to a patient within hours – rather than weeks. Pic: PA
Dr Cally Palmer, national cancer director at NHS England, said: “Detecting cancer early is key to providing treatment as soon as possible to help give patients the best chance of survival.
“For those needing tests to investigate suspected cancer, it can be an extremely worrying time and being able to rule out the disease sooner can make a huge difference for people and their families.”
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There are around 250,000 urgent referrals for suspected head and neck cancer each year, according to NHS England.
However, only 5% of these are diagnosed with the disease.
Janet Hennessy, 76, from Stoke-on-Trent, said she thought the device was “absolutely brilliant” after she took part in the trial.
She added: “When you have a procedure done and you’ve got to go back home and wait two or three weeks, even if you think there’s nothing there, you’re still thinking about it and it worries you and your family.”
Meanwhile, Kyle Jones, 31, was diagnosed using the gadget after being referred to Royal Stoke Hospital by his GP.
He said: “I remember being confused at the time due to my only symptom being a hoarse voice. It was like I had been singing too much at a gig the night before.”
Mr Jones said it was a “massive shock” to be informed he had cancer but was reassured by medics. He had his voicebox removed to prevent the disease from spreading further.
He added: “I’m scared to even think where I’d be or what could have happened without this device.
“With how fast that my cancer developed after the first appointment to the stage where I needed a big laryngectomy surgery it makes me so grateful that it was picked up and in time and I believe that has saved my life.”
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