HUNDREDS of hospital staff across York and North Yorkshire could be in line for hundreds of pounds in backdated holiday pay as unions press for payments to be recalculated.

Terry Cunliffe, regional officer for one of the unions, Unite, says holiday pay has been calculated for years on the basis of employees’ basic pay and any contractual overtime they work.

However, he said that tribunal test cases had established in recent years that calculations should also have taken into account "regular and settled" overtime which was beyond staff contractual obligations. He said many hospital employees did this type of overtime.

He said Unite, Unison and the GMB were now in negotiation with York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust on precisely how the change would relate to their members, and also how far back such backdated pay should be paid.

He hoped an agreement could be reached by no later than August, after which the trust’s offer would be put to members, with a rider asking them what action they wished the unions to pursue if members found it unacceptable.

He said Unite alone had about 600 people working at the trust, including nurses, cleaners, catering staff and estates workers, about 400 of whom were based at York Hospital itself.

However, the trust is also responsible for Scarborough Hospital, Bridlington Hospital, Malton Community Hospital, The New Selby War Memorial Hospital, St Monica’s Easingwold and White Cross Court in York.

Mr Cunliffe believed the backdated amount owed would vary from member to member, and would depend on how much regular and settled overtime they had been involved in and for how long.

He added that similar negotiations were ongoing with the Yorkshire Ambulance Service and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which had 500 and 1,000 Unite members respectively.

Stacey Booth, regional organiser for the GMB, which has about 80 members working for the trust, said the unions were pressing for backdating to 2016 and agreed that members could receive an average of hundreds of pounds in backdated holiday pay.

She added that some employers were waiting for the imminent outcome of another tribunal test case, involving an ambulance trust elsewhere, before settling their negotiations.

A spokeswoman for Unison was not available for comment.

A spokeswoman for York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “As with other NHS trusts and NHS organisations, local negotiations are ongoing with the unions.”