{"id":5887,"date":"2018-12-31T11:20:07","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T11:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/clinical-waste-firm-hes-confirms-it-has-ceased-operations\/"},"modified":"2018-12-31T11:20:07","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T11:20:07","slug":"clinical-waste-firm-hes-confirms-it-has-ceased-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/clinical-waste-firm-hes-confirms-it-has-ceased-operations\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinical waste firm HES confirms it has ceased operations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"HES HQ\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/8023\/production\/_103830823_218839ee-03db-4175-9f64-c00e3fc0deed.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    All employees of HES have now been told they have been made redundant<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">The firm at the centre of a row over stockpiled hospital waste has confirmed it has ceased operations. <\/p>\n<p>In its first public statement, Healthcare Environmental Services (HES) said all 400 staff were now redundant.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-46689322\" class=\"story-body__link\">About 150 staff at its North Lanarkshire headquarters were given redundancy letters on Thursday. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>HES lost its contracts with NHS Scotland and 17 NHS trusts in England after it was found to be stockpiling clinical waste.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-46695262\" class=\"story-body__link\">What went wrong for HES?<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/av\/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-46694956\/clinical-waste-staff-gutted-at-redundancy-news\" class=\"story-body__link\">Waste firm staff &#8216;gutted&#8217; at redundancy<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is understood that HES workers have not received wages that were due on Friday. In a text message to staff on Christmas Eve it claimed the bank would not release the funds. <\/p>\n<p>The firm has also said it cannot pay out redundancy money &#8211; and that payments would have to be claimed through the Redundancy Payment Service, a UK-wide scheme for employees of insolvent companies.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Redundancy notices were handed to staff during meetings on Thursday morning<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>HES has blamed a UK-wide shortage of high temperature incineration facilities for the problems that led to its demise &#8211; a claim denied by the UK government. <\/p>\n<p>In a statement, HES managing director Garry Pettigrew said: &#8220;We have tried so hard over the last few months to keep going but we&#8217;ve now reached the position where this is no longer tenable.  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Regrettably, we have informed staff that we are ceasing operations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The company&#8217;s main plant is at Shotts, in North Lanarkshire, but it has 10 regional centres across the UK.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Pettigrew said he believed Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment  (TUPE) regulations should apply, which would allow staff to transfer to a new employer on the same terms and conditions. <\/p>\n<p>However, it was not immediately clear if this was the case. <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Contingency plans<\/h2>\n<p>In Scotland, the NHS is now dealing with clinical waste under contingency plans until a new contract starts in April.<\/p>\n<p>In England Mitie has taken over some health service contracts previously held by HES.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Pettigrew said: &#8220;We believe that TUPE applies here and we hope that the staff will have the opportunity to transfer to the new contractors appointed by NHS National Services Scotland. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The contracts in England also fall within TUPE and Mitie and the other appointed contractors should allow this process to be implemented immediately to secure staff and customer services.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Staff have raised concerns about a build up of waste at the Shotts facility<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>HES employees have claimed that large quantities of waste have built up at the Shotts depot.<\/p>\n<p>The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) said it was monitoring conditions at Shotts and at the firm&#8217;s other Scottish site in Dundee. <\/p>\n<p>Sepa issued enforcement notices on 12 September and 11 December, and on Friday said it was investigating whether criminal offences had been committed. <\/p>\n<p>The Scottish government said it was working closely with Sepa and National Services Scotland to ensure waste collection and disposal services were maintained. <\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson added: &#8220;The contingency plans include the provision of waste management services until the new national healthcare waste management contract commences on 1 April 2019.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-46709321\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Reuters Image caption All employees of HES have now been told they have been made redundant The firm at the centre of a row over stockpiled hospital waste has confirmed it has ceased operations. In its first public statement, Healthcare Environmental Services (HES) said all 400 staff were now redundant. About 150 staff &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}