A letter has been sent from the branch to chief executive Ken Wenman regarding the recent issuing of letters to staff who have not sined the declaration regarding infection control. The letter sates:

You will recall that at our recent PPPG, staffside raised concerns about both the methods used by management to implement changes to our members contracts, and the detail of the changes. At that meeting we stressed that it was our wish to work with you and your team to achieve the highest standards of infection control. Our objections to the clauses that were included were based on our members ability to comply with the new requirements.

 It was my understanding that this was to be further discussed with us at the next PPPG. However, a further letter has been sent to staff again requesting them to sign and ‘confirm that you have read and understood the statements as appropriate to you’. The declaration also states that “I accept that this will form part of my contract of employment” which is obviously completely different to signing to confirm understanding.

 We are obviously disappointed that the recruitment department have sent out these letters before we had the opportunity to finalise our discussions.

 We would welcome your commitment to re address these issues at the next PPPG. Until then, our branch position remains that we are unable to advise our members to sign the statement, as we believe that there are fundamental problems with their ability to comply with the requirements.