HUNDREDS of cleaners, porters, housekeepers and other support staff at Colchester Hospital began a five-day strike yesterday as they battle to keep their jobs in the NHS.

The walkout by members of the Unison union also hit several community sites run by East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, where senior managers are planning to sell off services such as cleaning, catering, portering, housekeeping and security.

​Facilities at Ipswich Hospital, the trust’s other major acute care site, are already run by private company OCS, whose staff have fewer days of annual leave and less sick pay than their colleagues who are directly employed by the NHS. They also missed out on the extra one-off payment of £1,655 that NHS staff received in the last financial year.

Unison said that bosses in Colchester were trying to bus in scabs from OCS in Ipswich and to tap into the trust’s Covid volunteer network.