STAFF at a mental health trust are pushing ahead with plans to strike despite bosses' assurances that £2m worth of cuts will be dropped.
The Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust dumped plans to close a care ward for the elderly and two day units, as well as losing a consultant and a nursing post, after staff threatened to strike.
But Unison, which represents 700 of the 1,000 staff in the trust, has refused to accept the deal and says strike plans are to go ahead because staff are at high risk of assault when patients are put in unsecure units because there aren't enough beds.
Savings
Last month trust chief executive Andrew Butters resigned after being dogged by calls from relatives and staff for him to step down following a damning Commission for Health Improvement report.
Acting chief executive Laura Roberts confirmed that the savings package to reduce the trust's spiralling debts of £6m has now been rejected.
Now Unison has given the trust until January 16 to work out a new plan of action to reduce pressure on staff and find extra cash for beds, before staff ballot on strike plans.
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The staff are vulnerable, the patients are vulnerable and families and carers are left holding the baby.
Patients who need to be sectioned under Mental Health Act are delayed an assessment because there are no beds available.
Ultimately its the staff,families and patients that are left to pick up the pieces.
It's a ticking bomb and Unison are right to strike because it provides a focus for action.
strike now for the patients and families
So they should! The joining together of the south, central and north Manchester mental health services, together with parts of the social services, has been a farce from the outset.
The services should be put back the way they were. North and South Manchester have very different populations and needs. Central just seem to want to take over everything.
Why should mental health care throughout the city be provided by one trust? Uniformity is no arguement. There has to be a boundary somewhere, so why not have it running across the city? Why should two areas that have more in common than the rest of Manchester be separated by a service boundary? It seems in this instance that the inmates really have taken over the asylum.