MiP & Employers

Managers in Partnership does what it says on the tin: we are a union for management grades, and we seek to achieve our goals by working in partnership.

Primary amongst those goals is the protection and defence of our members’ rights and interests – including their employment rights, remuneration, working conditions and professional development. We push for health and care services to benefit from more funding, stronger support, and more effective systems of oversight and regulation. And we work to explain health managers’ roles and value to politicians, journalists and the public.

All these goals, we believe, are best achieved by working collaboratively with partners – including employers, ministers, civil service and health bodies, and our colleagues in the trade union movement. As a union, our instinct is to work through cooperation rather than confrontation.

Working in partnership

As managers and senior professionals, our members understand the policy and financial environment, and the constraints on employers and political leaders. They are realistic about what can be achieved. And they are ready to put others first in the interests of patient care and the system as a whole: for example, we spend more time campaigning for a living wage for all staff than for higher salaries for our members, and we advocate spending more on social care to reduce the pressures on NHS services.

So our interests lie in protecting the careers and working lives of our members, and in strengthening health and care services – not in picking political battles, or in playing to the crowd. We work hard to build strong relationships with employers and national health bodies, helping to improve business processes, HR systems and organisational policies. We engage constructively when our members have an HR problem, working to resolve disputes as rapidly as possible whilst recognising the employer's goals and constraints. And we actively seek common ground: our members and their employers often, for example, have a shared interest in explaining reform programmes or building partnerships between health providers.

We are recognised by all those employers that recognise the FDA or UNISON unions, and represented at the TUC via the FDA; so we can provide a valuable link between employers and the trade union movement.

At the national level, we are members of a wide range of policy development and best practice forums: drawing on the expertise and experience of our members, we work in partnership on strategy, management and service delivery issues across the UK’s health and care sectors. And at the local level, our full-time officers engage directly with employers to help strengthen working practices and change programmes – giving managers the tools they need to drive up the quality of service delivery and lift employer performance metrics.

Defending our members

That said, sometimes clear injustices and abuses of process demand a more robust approach – and when it comes to defending our members, we have years of experience in challenging the many forms of poor practice, incompetence, vindictiveness and discrimination experienced by health and care managers. Our network of national officers know employment law and practice inside out, and we have the legal support and the resources to secure full compensation for members who’ve been treated unfairly.

So we are an eager and wholehearted partner with national bodies and employers, always keen to help hard-pressed organisations deliver essential reforms and deliver excellent services for the public. And we are a mature and expert interlocutor in managing employment disputes – efficient and effective in safeguarding our members’ rights and protecting their careers.

Above all, we seek to work in partnership with employers. Our aim is to make your lives easier by resolving tensions between the interests of organisations and their staff. Where our members are treated unreasonably, we will secure redress; but in general, our relationship with employers is one of mutual respect and constructive engagement. That is, we believe, the best way to secure the best possible outcomes for organisations, staff and patients alike.