Staff fighting to stop their jobs being privatised say they are "fed up" and anxious as they take to the picket line for three weeks of action.

Cleaners, porters and housekeepers, as well as other facilities staff, who are employed at Colchester Hospital, Aldeburgh Hospital and other East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) community sites will walk out from Monday, November 25 until Friday, December 13.

Picket lines organised by UNISON are currently set up outside Aldeburgh Hospital, with Unite the Union also working to further the worker's cause outside Ipswich Hospital. 

Sarah Gray, a worker from Aldeburgh, said; "We are getting fed up with ESNEFT and how it says it wants to privatise our services. 

"Since March the trust has spoken to us two to three times, and that's just not enough to understand why we don't want our jobs to be privatised.

"On top of that, they keep pushing the day of the decision back, and now they will take the decision in private, we don't know when they will tell us about this.

"It just raises our anxiety so much."

They have had nearly 20 days of stike already. They have had nearly 20 days of strike already.  (Image: UNISON Eastern) ESNEFT wants to outsource services at Colchester Hospital and community sites such as Aldeburgh and Felixstowe hospitals and the rehabilitation clinic at Bluebird Lodge in Ipswich.

Facilities at Ipswich Hospital, also run by ESNEFT, are currently provided by private contractor OCS but this contract ends in April next year and UNISON argues the trust should bring services back in-house where they can be better controlled.

But the trust wrote to in-house staff in April 2024 to tell them their jobs could be outsourced and at a board meeting in May, ESNEFT chief executive Nick Hulme was filmed telling workers the decision to outsource had already been made.

The outsourcing decion will be take on December 5.The outsourcing decision will be taken on December 5.  (Image: UNISON Eastern) The staff, who have already taken more than 20 days of strikes, fear the sell-off will threaten their pay and conditions and pose a serious risk to patient safety.

Outsourced staff in Ipswich get fewer days of annual leave, less sick pay, and also missed out on the extra one-off payment of £1,655 that NHS staff received in the last financial year.

Previously ESNEFT has said: "It is the Trust’s responsibility and overriding priority to deliver the best possible care and outcomes for patients in a safe environment and at the best value for money for taxpayers.

"At a time when the local NHS is under significant and mounting pressure – and while we are still in discussion with trades union representatives and other stakeholders - it is difficult to see how a further period of industrial action will benefit local patients and their families." 

ESNEFT will take a decision on the future of services at a private meeting on December 5.