A hospital is offering food bank vouchers to workers as NHS staff complain of hardship, the Manchester Evening News can reveal. The help comes as one junior doctor told the Manchester Evening News that money is so tight that they are struggling 'beyond words to live'.
Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Stepping Hill Hospital, said it 'can now issue Stockport Food Bank vouchers to anyone who is struggling' in an internal email to its staff, seen by the M.E.N. Three vouchers can be issued per person across thirteen weeks with a number to contact for ongoing support after that, the email continued.
But the email has been met with frustration from staff who say they are desperately trying to make ends meet in the face of the skyrocketing cost of living, yet are earning less than in previous years and are charged to use hospital car parks. Even junior doctors, who start on a wage of just over £29,000, say they are finding it difficult to pay their way after payments needed to practice are taken, on top of tax and other bills.
The email from the trust reads: "We can now issue Stockport Food Bank vouchers to anyone who is struggling. In addition to the guaranteed food parcel comprising three days of food, toilet rolls and other personal hygiene items plus nappies and baby wipes are also included.
"Many centres also offer (as available) a selection of bread, fruit and vegetables as well as citizens advice and other support. Three vouchers can be issued per person across thirteen weeks with a number to contact thereafter for ongoing support."
The email then gives a contact address, advising that any voucher requests will be 'dealt with in the strictest confidence'.
One doctor at the trust, who wishes to remain anonymous, has hit back, saying that staff should not need to use food banks in the first place. He says the trust should rethink car parking charges or pay higher wages in response to the cost of living crisis.
"I’m a junior doctor and I’m struggling beyond words to afford to live, let alone live comfortably. I’m on 30 per cent less than my equivalent in 2008," they said.
"The trust I work for sent an email advising they are now in a position to offer us food bank vouchers. The trust also were quick to reintroduce parking fees for staff when the government advised trusts could reimplement the fees if they chose.
"At such a time of inequality, rising costs and falling healthcare workforce numbers, not to mention the stress and exhaustion from working a pandemic whilst everyone worked from home safely, we’re rewarded with a national insurance rise, licence to practice fees, malpractice insurance, union membership… and we also get the privilege of paying for parking to work.
"I thought it ironic and tone deaf the trust should send an email about food banks whilst taking between £200 to £500 from our salaries a year for the privilege of turning up to work."
The trust has said that parking charges were reinstated - having been waived at the height of the pandemic - to 'ensure that the cost of maintaining the car parks, hospital roadways and car park security does not come out of patient care funding'.
"We understand the huge pressures the current economic position is placing on many people, including our own staff and the local population we serve," said Stockport NHS Foundation Trust in response. "While NHS pay scales are set nationally we are taking a number of actions to support the health and well being of our colleagues.
"These include working with all our partners across Stockport to ensure those facing the greatest hardship have access to a range of support, such as food bank vouchers if they need them. Alongside all other hospital trusts in Greater Manchester, and the vast majority of trusts in England, we had to reintroduce parking charges for both our staff and the public following a government mandate earlier this year.
"Our staff car parking charges are on a progressive scale so that higher paid staff pay more than lower paid staff , and we also have a range of concessions available, including free parking for staff who work nights and different rates for those who work flexibly.
"As part of our Green Plan we are also encouraging and supporting staff to use alternative ways to travel to work, including raising awareness of TfGM's £2 cap on bus journeys and investing in additional cycle facilities for those who can bike to work."
However, the junior doctor says that even though the car park charges are on a sliding scale, they remain unaffordable for many of the staff who work within the hospital trust. “I think it’s pretty telling that for all the work and hours we put in, the hospital sends out this email offering food bank vouchers, rather than helping with not charging for parking," they said.
“The amount you pay depends on your grade, the higher your grade, the higher your cost is for parking - but you’re all using the same car park. The lowest cost is about £200-a-year. I can’t afford to park there anymore. I would have been about £30-£40 a month.
“You don’t go into this job for the money, but there’s a misconception that doctors are paid much more than we are."
Financial pressures come as demand on the NHS system and its staff continues to rise. Demand for hospital care has outstripped capacity for months, claim workers.
Shortages in social care, including too few community workers as well as a lack of care home spaces, are among the chief reasons for a lack of hospital beds, causing ambulances to have to wait outside hospitals with their patients until one comes free. Patients who actually get a bed in hospital cannot be discharged, as there are not enough resources to look after them at home or in residential care.
Delays for treatment - along with patients being forced to languish in hospital beds - can result in people's health deteriorating even further. Patients then come back through a revolving door into an NHS that is buckling under the weight of more seriously sick people than ever, with a dwindling number of staff to deal with them as they abandon the service for better paid, lower stress work, insiders warn.
It's been warned that strike action could be on its way in the coming months from doctors, nurses and paramedics over wages. Earlier this month, leading doctors warned that the NHS is “in danger of complete collapse” after a poll revealed that more than two in five of the most senior hospital medics are planning to leave the NHS in the next year. The British Medical Association (BMA) has said the NHS is “at breaking point” and called for immediate Government action.
A poll found that 44 per cent of hospital consultants in England plan to leave, or take a break from working in the NHS, over the next year.
Meanwhile nine in 10 consultants said this year’s pay rise of 4.5 per cent was “inadequate” or “completely unacceptable”. The BMA said “punitive” rules on pension taxation have led to a tripling of doctors taking early retirement in the last 13 years, with the average retirement age now 59.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We hugely value the contribution of our NHS staff and are doing what we can to support them – including providing free hospital car parking for NHS staff working overnight among other groups.
“Junior doctors are in a pre-existing multi-year pay and contract reform deal, ending in March next year, which will be the right time to consider pay.
“This deal included a pay rise of 8.2 per cent over four years and £90 million of additional investment to provide the most experienced junior doctors with higher pay, increase allowances for those working the most frequently at weekends and increase rates of pay for night shifts.”
NHS England has been contacted for comment.
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