The first NHS strike for almost 20 years was announced today as Unison members overwhelmingly backed industrial action over the decision to sell off the supply arm of the NHS.
Dave Prentis, the Unison general secretary, announced the ballot result at the TUC conference in Brighton today in light of government moves to outsource NHS Logistics - the body which provides NHS equipment - to the German-owned logistics company, DHL.
NHS Logistics workers voted by three to one to strike. The supply arm employs almost 1,400 workers, just under 1,000 of whom are Unison members.
Speaking today, Mr Prentis said the decision to sell off NHS Logistics was evidence of "market madness" and of "privatisation driven by dogma, delivered by diktat".
He described the ballot decision as a response by committed NHS staff appalled by the decision to outsource the NHS supplying arm, "which supplies everything from bedpans to Weetabix direct to hospital wards".
"These are not trouble makers, not hardliners but workers who care deeply about the NHS, hard-working public service workers who have never taken strike action before, making a stand to protect their service and protect our NHS."
He added: "NHS logistics is an award-winning service and it makes no sense to sell it off to DHL."
The Department of Health started drawing up contingency plans to limit disruption, but union officials warned that hospitals would quickly run out of supplies.
A Unison spokesman said that bulky items such as bedpans and urinals would quickly run out and hospitals would run short of hand gel, latex gloves and food such as breakfast cereals, drinks and tinned vegetables.
Union officials will meet later this week to decide a strike timetable, but the first walkout could happen during the Labour party's annual conference in two weeks' time.
Hundreds of hospitals across England would be hit by the strike, the first ever walkout by logistics' workers.
The Unison spokesman said that the union had drawn up emergency plans to cover life and limb but warned that strike action will have an immediate impact on hospital supplies.
Workers set to go on strike are based at distribution centres in Alfreton, Derbyshire; Runcorn, Cheshire; Normanton, West Yorkshire; Maidstone, Kent and Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.
Mr Prentis said the decision to award DHL the contract, set to start on October 1, would turn the clock back 20 years.
"Hospitals will need huge storage areas to cope with bulk buying. Wards can order one packet of cornflakes if that's what they want.
"Under DHL they will have to order packs of 14 boxes and hospitals will have to find space to store them.
"The buy-it-cheap and pile-it-high ethos will mean extra work unpacking and storing for busy nursing and ward staff."
The union said its members felt "betrayed" over the privatisation of their work. Mr Prentis said that the NHS was now in crisis with daily reports of service cuts and redundancies and workers falling victim to Labour's "market madness".
NHS logistics makes an average of 1,200 deliveries every day to 10,000 delivery points, deliveries which include surgical supplies and other products.
Paul Harper, Unison's branch secretary at the Maidstone depot, said: "Strike action is a last resort but we have no choice.
"Members are extremely upset about the transfer... This is not a service the government should be gambling with by handing it over to a parcel delivery company."
Unison is also seeking a judicial review against the awarding of the contract to DHL.
If the strike goes ahead it will be the biggest bout of national industrial action in the Health Service since 1988 when midwives went on strike over pay.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "The NHS uses around 500,000 different products such as catering supplies, office equipment and medical supplies, but only around 51,000 of these products are provided by NHS Logistics.
"The majority of hospitals have their own local supply and delivery arrangements.
"We have put detailed contingency plans in place to ensure minimum disruption to NHS services in the event of any industrial action."
A contingency planning group has been set up and all distribution centre bosses have been told to maintain a full staff complement at all times and to keep temporary staff recruited for holiday cover.
The department insisted it was not turning the NHS into a private service.
The spokesman added: "We will never abandon the principle that healthcare should be free at the point of need, not based on the ability to pay."
DHL said terms and conditions for employees will be safeguarded under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations, including pensions.
The company said it will recognise continuity of employment and will seek to create an additional 1,000 jobs over the 10-year contract and build two new distribution centres in England.
Dr Neil Bentley, the CBI's director of public services, said: "Reforms have delivered real benefits to our health service and to the quality of patient care.
"Independent sector treatment centres have helped to slash waiting lists, and the private finance initiative has delivered state-of-the-art hospitals up and down the country on time and to budget."
The move to take strike action follows a motion unanimously backed by the TUC conference this morning offering support to any public service union taking strike action over the government's controversial public service reforms.
Unions became alarmed after the chancellor, Gordon Brown, stated over the weekend that he intended to intensify privatisation if he became Labour party leader once Tony Blair stands down.
Mr Prentis accused the government of creating an impression of ineptitude in its health reforms. "A government that has lost the plot.... all done in the arrogant self belief that they know best."
He warned future contenders for the Labour party leadership not to take his members' backing - one of the big four Labour affiliated unions - for granted.
"I have a message for those waiting in the wings," he said. "You've ridden on our backs for too long... If the current direction of travel continues there will be no going back, and trust me, there will be no fourth term."
Mr Prentis was speaking just after launching a campaign organised by a coalition of health unions which will defend the values and ethos of the NHS and fight the "marketisation and privatisation" of the NHS.
"Solidarity will be crucial in the next few months as the NHS faces its biggest test yet," he said.
