4th January 2017
The Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association is today delighted to announce that it has achieved national bargaining rights for all grades in England following confirmation from NHS Employers Chief Executive Danny Mortimer.
Recognition follows years of talks and is the culmination of a campaign by HCSA to be able to negotiate nationally on behalf of its members.
It means that for the first time since the NHS was established in 1948 there are now two nationally recognised professional associations and unions negotiating directly with employers on behalf of hospital doctors working in NHS England.
Recognition will mean that in future HCSA will join the British Medical Association in all national negotiations on pay and terms and conditions covering hospital doctors in England, including Doctors in Training (junior doctors), Specialists, and Consultants.
HCSA will also now be the only Trades Union Congress-affiliated nationally recognised organisation representing hospital doctors directly in negotiations with NHS Employers and Government.
HCSA is seeking similar national collective rights for hospital doctors in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady congratulated HCSA following news that it has finally achieved recognition.
“We welcome the decision by NHS England to recognise HCSA, which is excellent news for the doctors they represent and whose pay and conditions they can now negotiate,” she said.
“And it's good news for NHS patients, whose interests will be well served by the campaigning work of HCSA for a properly resourced NHS in which staff are able to provide the best possible standards of clinical care.”