STRIKES planned by security guards at Lancashire hospitals have been cancelled with the guards having won full NHS pay and conditions.

The security staff, who work at Royal Blackburn Hospital and Burnley General Hospital, had been planning to stage a 48-hour strike on Sunday April 18 over their private sector employer Engie Ltd failing to pay them NHS rates.

However, the hospital workers have now cancelled all plans to strike after East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust took the decision to bring the security service ‘in-house’, meaning that hospital security workers will be employed by the NHS Trust rather than Engie.

Unison North West regional organiser Rebecca Lumberg said: “This is an excellent victory for this group of dedicated hospital workers, who stuck together and rightly insisted that they were part of the NHS team.

“Hospital security workers keep patients and staff safe.

"They have put themselves at increased risk working during the pandemic and they fully deserve the NHS pay and conditions that they will now receive."

Currently, multinational outsourcing giant Engie only pays the hospital workers the minimum wage rate, which Unison says leaves some of the Lancashire security staff up to £6,000 per year worse off compared to security guards employed on NHS terms.

In response, Unison members who work as guards at Blackburn and Burnley hospitals, totalling 30 members of staff, voted unanimously on a 93 per cent turnout for strike action, with the ballot held between January 14 and February 3 this year.

Strike had originally been set to begin on March 21 before being postponed thanks to a last minute pay deal.

Now, thanks to East Lancashire Health Trust's decision to bring the security guards into the NHS itself, the strikes have been cancelled all together.

The contract for security services between Engie and the Trust will end within the next three to six months, at which point the hospital security guards will transfer to health service employment and will be entitled to full NHS Agenda for Change pay and conditions.

Engie and the NHS Trust have also come to an agreement which means that hospital security workers will receive the NHS hourly rate and overtime rate until the TUPE transfer takes place.

Ms Lumberg said: “We commend the commitment and hard-work undertaken to ensure that this issue was positively resolved before strike action was taken.

"We look forward to working in partnership with the Trust to make sure that the full benefits of taking this service in-house are felt by both patients and staff.”