Airedale Hospital staff announce further strike action in pensions dispute
The strike involves workers including porters, domestic, catering, and security staff employed by AGH Solutions - a subsidiary of the trust
Last updated 6th Jan 2026
Nearly 200 staff at Airedale Hospital have announced plans to take seven days of strike action later this month over alleged pension inequality.
The strike, scheduled from January 20 to 26, involves workers including porters, domestic, catering, and security staff employed by AGH Solutions (AGHS), a subsidiary of Airedale NHS Foundation Trust.
While workers have previously won improvements to their terms and conditions a dispute remains over pensions.
Currently, some AGHS employees receive NHS pension benefits, while many others are on less favourable terms.
Joe Wheatley, GMB organiser, said:
“The Chief Executive of Airedale NHS Trust is on £202,000 a year — the director of AGHS is on £184,000 a year.
“Effectively, these well-paid administrators are telling our frontline NHS workers, who are on £24,465 a year, that they don’t care if they can’t afford to retire.
“We have ten senior managers at Airedale Trust whose combined salaries would almost cover the cost of uplifting 300 frontline NHS workers onto the NHS pension.
“This dispute is about whether NHS workers retire with dignity or in poverty.
“We invite the administrators of the Trust and AGHS to answer that question.”
Dennis Kentrop, Managing Director of AGH Solutions Limited said:
“AGH Solutions (AGHS) Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Airedale NHS Foundation Trust. We are very proud to work for and with the NHS and Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, but we are in essence a private company with different terms and conditions from the NHS.
“We value each of our AGH Solutions employees which is why, working with GMB, we have recently made significant improvements to our pay, terms and conditions offer to colleagues on AGHS terms and conditions.
“Offering our own terms and conditions gives us the flexibility to continue to attract talented individuals and secure the technical skills required by the company. It also means that we can aim to provide a more flexible pension option compared to the NHS pension (Agenda for Change).
“We are disappointed that our improved pension offer was rejected by GMB and we were not able to reach an agreement to avoid any disruption to patient care.
“I hope that we can continue to work with the union to resolve this before 20 January. However, should industrial action take place, we will work through our contingency plans and apply lessons learned from the previous rounds of strikes to maintain the services that we provide to Airedale NHS Foundation Trust.”