Two NHS trusts are shutting their childcare facilities for workers, with no consultation process. The move has sparked anger among staff – not least those who will lose their jobs.
NHS trusts closing childcare facilities
The Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, is described as the “heart” of South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLAM) and shares its nursery sites with King’s College London Hospital (KCH).
Staff from the Maudsley and Kings’ College Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience create one of the largest concentrations of scientists and clinicians in Europe, working in mental health.
Yet, executives at both NHS foundation trusts have announced, with no consultation or warning and despite repeated assurances, that they will close the two staff nurseries at Mapother House, their crucial childcare facility, with no plans for replacement childcare provision:
#SaveOurNurseries – Sign & share this petition to Save NHS workplace nurseries at Maudsley Hospital in Denmark hill. Seems Kings and SLAM NHS Trusts care very little about their workforce and equality – https://t.co/WE9qa0R2R3
— postpandemicchildcare (@postpandemicch1) September 29, 2024
Mapother House at Maudsley Hospital holds both the KCH day nursery and SLAM’s Cedar House day nursery. The nurseries are staffed by highly skilled, compassionate and dedicated early years practitioners. They have provided specialised, experienced, affordable and quality care to NHS key workers for decades.
It is open for unusually long hours and the only local early childcare and education facility able to support NHS staff who work long shifts.
A devastating decision
Yet, SLAM has decided to close them. Campaigners say the move will have numerous knock-on effects:
- Parents and carers – including those of children with additional support needs (SEND) – have been given only six months to find new nursery places for their children.
- Around 120 full time places will be lost if the closures go ahead.
- Typical waiting lists for private nursery places in the area extend beyond a year, and there is a lack of alternative accessible provision.
- Both SLAM and KCH NHS trusts are already struggling to recruit and retain staff and this decision is likely to exacerbate this problem.
SLAM has recognised that closing the nursery will add to already high agency staff costs, as it will reduce the incentive and affordability for staff to remain working for the Trust meaning that they will leave.
Campaign group Post Pandemic Childcare is taking action. It said in a statement:
The decision not only puts health services at risk, and undermines both Trusts’ stated commitment to workplace equality for staff who are parents, but reveals a dismissive attitude to their long-standing experienced early years staff, some of whom have served the NHS for over twenty years. Nursery staff are facing a speedy consultation and the suggestion that instead of being offered proper redundancy, they may be re-deployed into other non-clinical roles across the Trust which do not value their knowledge and skills as early years practitioners.
A wider NHS problem?
SLAM and KCH’s decision is not an isolated one. It’s a similar story in Croydon and Camberwell.
Parents and carers have raised that in the absence of this vital workplace provision, they may have to stop working and stay at home, or look for jobs elsewhere, with potential serious implications for patient safety and standards of care.
Post Pandemic Childcare has started a petition, and immediately received over 600 signatures. You can sign it here.
Featured image via Post Pandemic Childcare
