Thank you!

I received the election results for the UNISON Health Service Group Executive yesterday. I'm honoured to be able to report that members in the East Midlands region have elected me to represent them for a further two years:

Nick Holden 1739

Ann Ashworth 780

So I'd like to say a big thank you to all those members in the region who supported me, and also to Ann, who conducted a friendly and honest campaign - elections where the competing candidates can discuss the issues in a positive manner, as Ann and I did at health conference back in April, can only make the union stronger. I hope Ann's talents can be put to use by our region in some other role, now that she's not to be representing us on the SGE.

I think it will be an interesting, and important, year on the SGE. The members have endorsed the three year pay deal, but only after receiving assurances from UNISON's national negotiators that it contained a robust re-opener clause which would enable the unions to push for better increases in years two and three if inflation rose rather than fell. Since inflation has already risen, we shouldn't wait too long before putting that to the test.

There will be other tests for the new SGE: despite promises to the contrary, the pace of change in the NHS shows no sign of slowing down, and primary care, shared services, mental health and acute medicine all seem to be facing threats of various forms of privatisation or competition. In the 60th anniversary year of the NHS we must do more to protect, maintain and restore the National Health Service as a gold standard service for all, not a 'market place in healthcare' where businesses compete for the profitable work, and squabble over treating the rest of us at the lowest possible cost.

At the next meeting of the SGE, which is our 'annual general meeting' in July, we will have a new face from our region: Karen Collins from Nottingham University Hospitals branch was elected unopposed to fill the low paid reserved seat for the East Midlands. I'm sure Karen will do an excellent job representing low paid members in our region, and I'm looking forward to hearing her speak at the SGE.

The new SGE shows some changes outside of the East Midlands too. Both of the sitting SGE members in London have lost their seats to outspoken critics of the three year pay deal, Janet Maiden from UCLH branch and Len Hockey from Whipps Cross. Both of them will be familiar to activists who attend UNISON health conference, since both are 'regular voices' in the conference and fringe meetings. Len has an excellent record in fighting for low paid members in his branch, and Janet continues a proud tradition of UNISON activists from the UCLH branch.

My friend from the North West region, Caroline Bedale, has lost her seat, mostly it seems because she missed the deadline for submitting her election addres. Every cloud has a silver lining, though, as this means Caroline will be free to speak from the floor at next year's health conference.

We've also lost Karen Reissmann from the SGE, who was ruled ineligible to stand to defend her seat in the North West region because of a short period of unemployment following her victimisation as a trade union activist! Hopefully, though, we won't be without Karen for too long, as I understand she is seeking nominations for the by-election to fill a vacant NEC health seat.

There's a new face in the South East region where Tracey Ellicott has unseated Eileen Welland in the female seat, and another in Yorkshire and Humberside where Adrian O'Malley has won the male seat over Ian Lindley.

I'm looking forward to working with all those newly-elected (and old faces) onto the SGE.

I would also like to thank those branches that nominated me, and friends and colleagues around the region who helped to encourage members to actually vote.

In the East Midlands the turnout was higher than in the by-election a year ago, but still barely above 10%. It is worrying that so few members of our union feel that electing their national leadership is something that they want to spare two minutes to do. What's also noticeably is that in the general seat there were 405 spoilt or blank papers, while in the election for the women's seat (won by Roz Norman) there were 597 spoilt or blank papers. This means that either nearly 1000 people chose to vote in only one of the two elections, or a large number of people misunderstood the ballot instructions. Looking at the figures in other regions it does seem to be that where there are two seats to vote for many members only use one vote - whether because they only care about one seat or because they mistakenly believe they can only vote once we just don't know.

Perhaps it is time that someone from the union reviewed the 'spoilt' papers to see if any improvements can be made to the ballot process which might enable more people to participate more effectively. After all, its only democracy if people take part...

On a related issue, it seems the turnout for the recent UNISON members' ballot on the three year pay offer will be announced after a meeting on Friday between the lead national officials of the NHS unions. I can imagine that might be quite a 'frank' discussion, after some of the things which were said and written during the consultation period on the three year offer, but keeping things secret from our union colleagues doesn't, in my view, make us strong - it just makes us look like we've got something to hide. If the turnout was high we would be proclaiming it, especially since some UNISON officials have gone out of their way to criticise those unions which did not conduct ballots of their membership but consulted through their branches. So the fact that UNISON has not immediately announced the turnout of the ballot has led everyone to assume it was low, or at least no better than similar ballots held in the past, which have generated a turnout in the 15% to 20% range. If the turnout was similar to that, we have another issue to confront in the union, since if people don't even get involved in deciding whether to accept a pay cut or not, it is difficult to imagine something they would bother to vote for...