Unison
says dirty hospitals and poor food are a direct result of declining numbers of
domestic staff in the NHS.
The
union said the NHS would need to double the number of ancillary hospital staff
just to return to pre-1986 levels.
It
also called on the Government to launch a national NHS recruitment and retention
drive to boost numbers and raise standards.
Speaking
at the Association of Domestic Management conference in Harrogate, Unison’s
national officer Yvonne Cleary said: "We need to make politicians realise
it is people – frontline staff – who will deliver cleaner hospitals. It is a
national scandal that the NHS has lost so many of its domestic staff. When they
talk about the NHS Plan providing better hospital food or cleaning up our
hospitals, where is the commitment for more staff?
"The
only way to deliver cleaner hospitals and get back to basics, is to get back to
half-decent staffing levels," she said. "Politicians need to face up
to the scandalous situation of having barely 40,000 domestics, publicly and
privately employed, when 20 years ago we had over twice that number."
