09.10.2025 / Press releases /

Pay scandal exposed at NHS Trust: £30m in pay and benefits and £6m in pension contributions withheld from mainly migrant cleaners, caterers and porters

A damning new report uncovers systemic racial inequality and financial injustice at the heart of St George’s, Epsom and St Helier Hospital Group (GESH), as hundreds of low-paid NHS facilities workers prepare to strike. 

• Structural racism exposed – hundreds of predominantly Black, Brown and migrant NHS workers denied equal rights, pay and benefits.
• £30 million in lost benefits over the past four years – with individuals underpaid by up to £10,000 each year. 
•  Over £6 million in pension entitlements allegedly unlawfully withheld, breaching pension law. 
•  Alleged breach of NHS equality rules and the Equality Act 2010 – workers denied sick pay, enhanced night/weekend rates, and leave progression. 
• NHS double standards – senior Trust executives on some of the highest salaries in the NHS, while low-paid workers left behind. 
•  98% strike vote from over 300 cleaners, porters and caterers, members of United Voices of the World Union, UVW, demanding Agenda for Change (AfC) pay, conditions and equality. 

A shocking new report by UVW union, “NHS at 75: The Hidden Cost for Low-Paid, Migrant Workers at St Helier and Epsom Hospitals”, exposes what the union is calling institutional racism entrenched in the NHS. 

According to the findings, hundreds of facilities staff – including cleaners, porters and caterers – employed directly by St George’s, Epsom and St Helier Hospital Group (GESH) have for years been systematically excluded from the NHS’s Agenda for Change (AfC) pay and conditions.
 

The report argues that this exclusion overwhelmingly affects Black, Brown and migrant workers, while their predominantly white colleagues in other NHS roles receive full rights and entitlements.
 

UVW representing the facilities workers have branded the case a landmark example of structural racism, saying the Trust has operated a two-tier, racially divided system that rewards CEO’s up to £315,000 per year while underpaying the Black, Brown, and migrant workforce who clean wards, transport patients and prepare meals.

 

With a 98% strike vote, over 300 facilities workers are prepared to walk out unless GESH grants them full NHS AfC contracts. The hospital group’s Board will decide this month on whether to finally end the racialised two-tier system and deliver long overdue justice to these essential NHS staff.
 

The report, “NHS at 75: The Hidden Cost for Low-Paid, Migrant Workers at St Helier and Epsom Hospitals”, is published publicly on 9 October 2025. 
 

Annabella, a specialist rapid response and pathology cleaner at Epsom Hospital said

“Why this discrimination? They said we’d be on better contracts when we came over from Mitie, but we’re not. They lied to us. For many of us, English is not our first language, and it feels like we are being taken advantage and exploited with these poor contracts, I teach my son not to lie, but I think we are being lied to. We are all in the same ship. We should be on the same money. It’s only fair. They think they are doing us a favour by giving us extra hours, but we have to do them simply to survive as everything is so expensive.”

Petros Elia, UVW General Secretary said: 

“For years GESH Trust has systematically withheld millions in vital pay and pension contributions from their lowest-paid staff. The clock has run out on this injustice. With over 300 workers ready to take industrial action, the eventual abolition of this gross injustice and racial discrimination is inevitable. The Trust must decide if they will continue to escalate this conflict by forcing a strike or demonstrate integrity by immediately resolving this situation. The choice to do the right thing is theirs.” 

Notes for editors  

The St George’s, Epsom and St Helier Hospital Group (GESH) runs St Heliers and Epsom hospitals in South London and Surrey. 

Contracts for NHS staff are governed by the 2004 Agenda for Change (AfC), which provides much better conditions than privately outsourced workers. 

Despite doing essential frontline work at St Heliers and Epsom Hospitals, facilities workers who were previously employed by Mitie and brought back in house 4 years ago, earn less than NHS Band 2 staff – £13.85 per hour versus £14.92 – losing out on thousands annually. 

They also miss out on key benefits such as paid sick leave from day 1, and enhanced nights and weekend pay, which can boost NHS wages to £20 and £27 per hour for Band 2. 
 
Their pension contributions are just 3%, far below the standard NHS rate of 23%, and they are stuck on 24 days’ holiday, with no increase for length of service, unlike colleagues who receive up to 33 days plus Bank Holidays. 

Jacqueline Totterdell, GESH CEO, earned £315,000 before stepping down in July 2025, according to a May 2025 Taxpayers Alliance study, 
 
United Voices of the World is an anti-racist, member-led, direct action, campaigning trade union and we exist to support and empower the most vulnerable groups of precarious, low-paid and predominantly BAME and migrant workers in the UK. We fight the bosses through direct action on the streets and through the courts and demand that all members receive at least the London Living Wage, full pay, sick pay, dignity, equality and respect. 

Visit the Equality Now campaign page >> 

For more information contact the UVW press team 

Isabel: 07706 987443

Cristina: 07548 759340 

E-mail: comms@uvwunion.org.uk     

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