Biomedical staff set to strike in East Lancs hospitals over holiday pay row

Plans are being drawn up to ensure blood tests continue to be processed for patients across East Lancashire after 20 days of strike action were announced at the Royal Blackburn and Burnley General hospitals.

Biomedical staff within the Unite union are set to walk out on four separate occasions in less than a month – starting next week.  The striking workers analyse routine and urgent blood samples ordered by GP surgeries and other primary care facilities – as well as those taken from hospital patients.

The industrial action is part of a dispute over holiday pay.

The two affected hospitals are run by East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELH).  However, most health service pathology staff across Lancashire now work for Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LTH) after that organisation became the ‘lead employer’ for the service – everywhere except West Lancashire – in April.

The hospitals operated by LTH – the Royal Preston and Chorley and South Ribble Hospital – are unaffected by the walkout, as are those in Blackpool and Lancaster.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) understands that a full range of contingency measures are being considered in order to enable the crucial service to continue – including East Lancashire blood samples being processed at sites where strike action is not taking place.  However, further additional capacity may also have to be sourced.

Unite is predicting ”significant delays to tests and procedures” during the strikes, which are scheduled to take place from 15th-19th June, 22nd-26th June, 29th June-3rd July and 6th-10th July.

The holiday pay issue relates to a grievance originally brought by the union against ELH, which has now been inherited by LTH after the change of employer.

The union says a tribunal previously found in favour of a single employee over the matter – but that the situation was not subsequently resolved for the rest of the workforce “who are now owed thousands of pounds”.

Staff in biomedicine in East Lancashire work across different shifts which means that their pay varies. The union says the law dictates that holiday pay should be calculated on an average of all earnings – with the principle that a worker should receive no less while on holiday than they would get when working.

Unite’s regional officer, Helen Flanagan, said: “Workers at these hospitals are at the end of their tether and have lost all confidence in management to resolve this issue. They have been left with no choice but to take strike action to get their legally entitled holiday pay.

“Strike action will inevitably lead to delays and will impact patients but this is entirely the fault of the trust’s management which has had every opportunity to resolve this dispute but has failed to do so. Management at the trust will now see the anger of their staff first hand when strikes begin later this month.”

A Lancashire Teaching Hospitals spokesperson told the LDRS: “On 1st April 2026, pathology services across Lancashire and South Cumbria came together as one service, led by LTH.

“The change brought staff and expertise from Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust and LTH into a single, co-ordinated network – and all transferring staff became LTH employees at that time.

“Prior to this move, some colleagues working within the blood sciences department at ELH had a grievance with their former employer. Following the TUPE [Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)] move, an appeal is now set to take place towards the end of June 2026 and will be heard by LTH.

“A comprehensive plan is being developed to mitigate any impact on services for patients across the East Lancashire area.”

TUPE regulations are designed to protect employees when the business or service they work for changes owner or operator.

The move to a single pathology service employer across Lancashire and South Cumbria came in the wake of previous plans to create a new model for diagnostic sample processing in the region – based around a central ‘hub’ – which was never implemented.