HEALTH workers on strike at Plymouth’s Derriford hospital warned today they would not back down in their fight for pay justice.

Workers are “angry they have been forced to take industrial action — they are some of the lowest-paid staff in the NHS and the trust are ignoring them and exploiting their skills,” regional organiser Sarah Woodward told the Morning Star as they took the second of two days’ strike action.

The health care assistants (HCA) have been paid on a lower NHS band for workers providing personal care such as bathing and feeding patients, but have routinely been undertaking clinical tasks like taking bloods and inserting cannulas.

“They have been working above grade for years,” Ms Woodward said, “performing clinical tasks which the trust has trained them to do but not paid them to. The HCAs invited the chief executive to come and meet them and he refused.”

Unison Plymouth branch secretary Kevin Treweeks said other hospital trusts have settled but Derriford appears to be trying to “close its budget gap by taking money out of the pockets of some of the lowest-paid staff. That’s just not fair.”