Critical care staff strike at Royal Oldham Hospital Thursday

Critical care staff at Royal Oldham Hospital will walk out for 12 hours on Thursday in a dispute over overtime pay. Nurses, support workers, and housekeepers from the hospital's critical care units will join colleagues from Fairfield Hospital in Bury and Salford Royal in the industrial action, which begins at 7.30am on March 12.

The strike follows the collapse of eleventh-hour talks between UNISON and the Northern Care Alliance Foundation Trust on Tuesday. The union says staff should receive proper overtime payments and pension contributions when doing additional shifts, arguing that critical care units are heavily reliant on overtime due to staff shortages.

Kevin Dolan, UNISON North West regional organiser, said: "Critical care staff are highly trained, skilled professionals who literally keep people alive. The trust needs to reward them properly, in line with their terms and conditions, when they do overtime.

The specialist nature of critical care means most overtime shifts are picked up by staff already working on the unit, according to the union. While nobody wants to be on strike, Dolan added there's still time for managers to come back with a fair solution and avoid disruption to services.