Surrey & Borders NHS Trust Cuts Disabled Workers Pay

This campaign was launched after the following story of penny pinching appeared in a Surrey Newspaper about the way disabled workers were being treated by Surrey & Borders Partnership at the Trust run Old Moat Garden Centre , Horton Lane , Epson, Surrey under the guise of ' Modernisation '.

Even when people complained to Peter Kinsey the Surrey & Borders Manager responsible for this corporate mean spiritedness the official response was staggeringly arrogant. Please take time to read what happened to the disabled workers at the Old Moat Garden Centre and support the campaign to get the Surrey & Borders Partnership to treat them fairly.

Thank You

Health Bosses Axe £3 a Day Wages

THE father of a man with learning difficulties is furious that
health bosses have axed his £3-a-day wages for working at a NHS
Trust owned garden centre.

By Joan Mulcaster

This means that for digging, hoeing, weeding, shovelling, planting,
moving and potting at The Moat Garden Centre in Epsom, owned by
Surrey and Borders NHS Trust, Brian Hall, 44, now gets nothing.

And the same goes for his other £3-a-day job, filling envelopes at
the trust's Office Project in Cobham.

Brian's father, David Hall of Green Lane, Ewell, said: "From very,
very cheap labour he and his friends are now being used as free
labour - how low can you get?"

Brian, who lives in a trust community home in Langley Vale and
others housed in similar homes and also employed in its various
commercial enterprises, are having their pay docked as part of a
modernisation policy.

Bosses claim this is not a cost cutting exercise.

Mr Hall added: "I am disgusted at this treatment of the most
vulnerable members of our society who carry out hard manual work for
what is a commercial garden centre."


"News of this was broken at the centre last Friday.


"It was 'we won't be paying you any more' and some of the chaps
didn't realise what was going on.


"It is disgraceful that this penny-pinching NHS Trust should
penalise these vulnerable, disabled people working for them.


Epsom and Ewell MP Chris Grayling said: "It is beyond belief that
they save money by depriving the people who work for them.

"They paid them hardly anything and now they are paying them
nothing."

The Moat House Garden Centre was launched as a showpiece project to
be run as a commercial enterprise and staffed by supervised adults
with learning difficulties.


However, the £3-a-day pay - described by the trust as therapeutic
reward money - compares badly with pay convicted criminals earn on
prison enterprises.


A statement from trust director of operations Peter Quinsey
said: "Payments are a throwback to the days of large mental health
and learning disability institutions when patients were rewarded for
work or therapy activities.


"This is now outdated and many mental health institutions do not
recognise the practice so the trust has decided to end these
payments.


"Work services are being remodelled to reflect modern practices
which clearly distinguish between paid work, voluntary work,
training and therapy."

Protest to

e-mail

Janet.Buckell@sabp.nhs.uk

PA to Mr Peter Kinsey

and:

Fiona.Edwards@sabp.nhs.uk

Chief Executive

Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Trust

Surrey & Borders Trust Partnership Headquarters

Fiona Edwards
Chief Executive
Ramsay House,
West Park,
Horton Lane,
Epsom,
Surrey
KT19 8PB
Tel: 01883 383838

Use the Header ' Therapeutic Earnings' , used by the SABP NHS Trust , for reference