The health visitors, members of Unite, have been on strike since  23 February 23 over the refusal by CTUMHB management to regrade them from Band 6 to Band 7. The strike was scheduled to end on March 20 but has now been extended to at least May 15 given the refusal by the Health Board to put forward any meaningful proposals at the ACAS meeting. A formal dispute was first lodged in February 2024, so it is clear the management have no intention in accepting the health visitors’ claims.

The strike has echoes of the refuse workers strike in Birmingham where the Labour Council has dug its heels in and refused to meet the striking workers claim. Although the Health Board isn’t directly controlled by the Senedd it does have responsibility for carrying out functions delegated to it by the government in Cymru. At a meeting in the Senedd Jeremy Miles, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, backed the demands of health visitors to be paid at the correct rate. But so far the Labour government in Cymru has not intervened further despite protests at the Senedd.

The Health Board are also ignoring the instructions from the Nurses and Midwifery Council, (NMC) their professional body which is responsible for ensuring standards of practice by Nurses, Health visitors and Midwives are maintained and that they continue to expand their knowledge so that they can deliver the best possible care. The NMC carried out a review of banding for health visitors a couple of years ago and decided they should be graded as Band 7. In Scotland, health visitors have been paid at Band 7 since 2017 and other Health Boards in Cymru have agreed to pay at this rate.

Unite continue to support the strike and support has also come from former MP Beth Winter, who is standing in the elections to the Senedd in May as an independent. Adam Price, former leader of Plaid Cymru, replied to a letter about the strike from a constituent and stated that at ‘First Ministers Questions (Plaid MS’s) Luke Fletcher and Heledd Fychan highlighted the shameful inaction of the Welsh government on this issue’. He continued by saying that Plaid Cymru will continue to raise the issue in the Senedd until the Welsh government does what is right.

A rally in support of the health visitors took place in Aberdare on March 27, which was joined by Ian Byrne, Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby. Ian was in the area for a Right to Food campaign organized by Beth Winter. At the rally he spoke passionately about the vital work done by health visitors in supporting families and people across our communities. This is something every Labour MP, MS, MSP and councillor should be doing.

Sennedd elections

The strike is taking place in the run up to the Senedd elections in which Labour is expected to not only lose control of the Welsh government for the first time since devolution began in 1998 but also fail to be the biggest party in Cymru election for the first time since the 1920s. The expectation is there will be a close race between Plaid Cymru and Reform won by Plaid. Plaid will then be the dominant party in any coalition, probably with the Green Party which is expected to win up to about 10 seats.

The health visitors strike is just one component of the disastrous failures of the Welsh Labour Party in the NHS, disastrous failures that are leading to Labour possibly coming fourth in the elections, behind the Greens. In addition to long waiting times Labour is currently being criticized for failing to reopen the Rutherford cancer centre in Casnewydd/Newport, despite its state-of-the-art facilities.  Morriston Hospital in Abertawe/Swansea has large numbers of beds occupied by people well enough to be discharged but who have nowhere to go because of the failures of successive governments, UK as well as Welsh, to solve the issue of social care by providing the much-needed facilities.

According to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine waits of 12 or more hours in A&E before admission to a hospital bed were associated with 965 deaths in Cymru in 2025. A Senedd health and social care committee found chronic underfunding for GP surgeries which meant they were unable to provide best quality service. The 8am telephone booking system, where patients hope to get through to book a GP appointment before all the slots have gone, came in for particular criticism.

Despite the crisis in the ambulance service recently qualified paramedics in Cymru have been told that no new paramedics will be employed this year. They have all been advised to apply for jobs in England or further afield.

This is the context in which health visitors in Cwm Taf Morgannwg are fighting for the level of pay supported by their union and their professional association. They do not want to withdraw their labour as they are concerned about the effects on the mothers and under 5-year-olds they care for in the community though support from their clients remains high. Faced with the intransigence of CTMUHD Health Board they have no choice but to continue their strike.

They call on people to:

• Show Solidarity and Raise Awareness on social media.
• Support protest rallies at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, the Senedd and elsewhere.
• Write to the Health Board and the Welsh Government.
• Contact local MSs/MPs to put pressure on the Health Board.
• Offer words of support the striking health visitors if you meet them.
• Support petitions.
• Engage with local union activities organized by Unite the Union.

Find out more about the dispute here.