Theatre workers at Salford Royal Hospital have braved the weather this week and joined NHS staff across Greater Manchester in a strike about unpaid overtime hours.
Members of UNISON took to picket lines outside Salford Royal, Rochdale Infirmary, Fairfield General Hospital in Bury and Royal Oldham Hospital in their continuing fight for fair compensation. The striking staff, including operating theatre nurses, support staff, and housekeepers, are demanding that the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust (NCA) honour contractual rates for extra shifts worked.
The dispute centres around how staff are paid when they pick up extra shifts to cover staff shortages.
Under regular NHS employment contracts, extra hours worked above full-time hours are supposed to be paid at “time-and-a-half”, meaning workers get their standard hourly rate plus an extra 50% for their time.
Instead, many staff are being booked for extra shifts through ‘NHS Professionals’, an internal staffing agency used across the NHS to book temporary and cover shifts.
The union claims that paying staff through this system, rather than the standard contractual overtime, means workers earn less than normal, losing out by up to £80 per shift despite helping keep hospital operating theatres running.
Staff say they are not asking for a pay rise, but simply for the overtime rates written in their contract.
☔️@unison_NCA theatre workers are ready to brave all conditions in their fight for fair overtime pay☔️
They were outside @NCAlliance_NHS’s Rochdale Infirmary and Fairfield Hospital (Bury) this morning. Colleagues were also out at Salford Royal Hospital and Royal Oldham Hospital✊ https://t.co/Zz4Oa816zQ— UNISON North West (@UNISONNorthWest) October 26, 2026
UNISON have confirmed that industrial action will continue through late October across all four trust sites, they said theatre workers are “ready to brave all conditions” in a post on X. Picket lines began on Monday (26th October) and continue on Wednesday (28th October) at all four sites, active from 8:30 am. On Friday (30th October), there will be a combined rally at Salford Royal and Oldham Royal Hospital.
This follows strikes on the same issue at the start of the month, where UNISON said in a statement:
“Theatre staff go to work every day in a department is chronically understaffed. Our members are overworked and their morale is at rock bottom. This is not safe for them or the patients they work so hard for.
“The offer that the trust has put to members does not make them feel valued. The trust has made it clear that it would prefer to spend taxpayers’ money on outside agency fees, rather than pay its staff directly, as per the nationally agreed terms and conditions in their contracts.”
Hospital bosses at the Northern Care Alliance say they are working to reach a fair resolution and will contact any patients directly if their appointments need to be rescheduled.
