Couriers of vital NHS supplies 'putting their lives at risk' after years of pay cuts

'One guy just brushed himself down and went in the next day because he wasn’t in a financial position to be able to rest up and get over the trauma,' says courier for The Doctors' Laboratory

Workers for TDL say rates for delivering supplies such as blood for transfusions have been slashed, piling pressure on them to drive faster (Getty)

Couriers delivering vital NHS supplies say they have been involved in multiple crashes - including one that was life-threatening - because of the pressure they are under after more than a decade of real-terms pay cuts.

Riders for The Doctors’ Laboratory (TDL), a pathology company that transports medical samples and blood for transfusions to hospitals across London, started a campaign on Monday demanding better pay and conditions from their employer.

The couriers are joining a protest against precarious work by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) and plan to lobby the company’s clients, including the NHS, and take strike action if necessary.

Duncan, a TDL motorbike courier who has worked for the company since 2005, has never received a pay rise. Just to keep up with inflation, pay would need to have risen more than 40 per cent in that time, meaning riders’ flatlining earnings represent a significant cut in real terms.

In 2015, TDL slashed the rates it pays per job by as much as 30 per cent and the couriers say that further changes last year resulted in another reduction in take-home pay. Two workers described a “bullying” culture at the company which was particularly fostered by one senior manager who pushed through 2015 cuts.

A spokesperson for the company said that TDL has always paid above the market rate for courier work and that any adjustments it has made reflect stagnant wages in the wider economy.

Duncan, who has been a courier for 21 years in total, says the job is particularly high pressured because some samples will be ruined if they are not delivered in time. He drives for 10 hours a day as standard and frequently works longer shifts.

“I’ve been doing it a long time so you build up the skill and ability to cope with that sort of pressure to make ends meet. But we are not getting paid enough now.”

“I love riding motorcycles,” Duncan says. ”It’s part of the reason I do the job.

“But I’ve crashed many times on a motorcycle and all of my crashes have been at work. All of them. I’ve never had a crash when I’m driving for pleasure.”

His worst accident at work required him to have a metal plate and several pins put in his arm. A number of colleagues have suffered injuries while out on deliveries.

“[the arm injury] hurts when it gets cold. I think I’m going to have problems with it when I’m older,” says Duncan, who is 47.

Alex Marshall, a bicycle courier for TDL and chair of the IWGB’s couriers and logistics branch, says workers have been involved in four accidents in the last six weeks, one of which was life-threatening.

“A guy came off his bike and basically went through the windscreen of a lorry,” says Marshall. The courier broke multiple ribs and was sent to intensive care. “He was lucky to be alive.”

Another courier recently broke his wrist leaving him unable to work. Many of the more than 100 riders for the company are classified as workers rather than employees, meaning that they are not entitled to sick pay. A crash can therefore be expensive as well as traumatic.

“One guy just brushed himself down and went in the next day because he wasn’t in a financial position to be able to rest up and get over the trauma,” says Marshall.

“Sometimes you just have to go in.”

While it is not possible to link individual accidents to the culture of the company the couriers that told their stories to The Independent spoke of rising stress levels caused by an increasingly out-of-touch leadership that does not understand the inherent dangers of delivering crucial supplies under demanding time constraints.

That feeling was strengthened last year when TDL’s chief executive received a bumper pay rise of almost 10 per cent to £420,000 while frontline workers’ rates were reduced. Another figure that wrankles is the £20m dividend TDL paid in 2017 to it’s Australian parent company, Sonic Healthcare.

“They just see a load of numbers on a screen, but what we see every day is that the company is dealing with human life,” says Marshall.

“I feel like they have become so far detached from the bread and butter of their business that they just don’t understand that the repercussion of these cuts is a poor service being provided to sick people whose life hangs on it.

“They seem to have forgotten that a lot of times these people need an emergency test, they’ve had blood taken out or they’re being operated on.

He added: “TDL’s service is based on long-term, high-quality staff but this is not recognised by the company,” says Marshall. Some have been at the company for 20 years, a degree of loyalty he puts down to the fact that conditions used to be much better and the work is rewarding on a non-financial level.

“In this job you feel like you’re doing a positive thing and there’s a sense of responsibility to the patients to be a better courier than at some of the other companies. We are going to cancer wards, to Great Ormond Street delivering samples for sick children.”

The couriers have already secured one victory since they began unionising last year. TDL conceded that riders who aren't employed directly should have had worker status. They had previously been classified incorrectly as independent contractors meaning they were denied holiday pay.

Now, after failing to secure a pay deal that reverses previous cuts, they plan to protest on 30 October, when the IWGB's “Rise of the Precarious Workers” demo makes a stop at TDL's offices near King’s Cross.

In addition to that, Duncan has a further request: “We just want to end the bullying. And a bit of respect.”

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A spokesperson for TDL said: “We are surprised to learn that the IWGB, with whom TDL has been in ongoing negotiations since June of this year, including a meeting with ACAS two weeks ago, has not accepted our improved offer. Our courier workforce is made up of directly employed individuals and those classified as workers on flexible contracts.

We have always paid our worker couriers above market rates and they have had paid holidays and pension contributions since the beginning of this year. TDL has addressed all requests for clarification by the IWGB and has put forward an offer that significantly improves their pay and working conditions. We are disappointed this has not been accepted.”