‘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 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.”

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.”