A series of fresh strikes by ambulance workers has been announced by Unite in an escalation of the bitter dispute over pay and staffing.
The union said its members across England, Wales and Northern Ireland will stage 10 further strikes over the coming weeks, warning that additional dates could be announced soon.
They will bolster the ranks of their paramedic colleagues with the GMB union, who announced on Wednesday that more than 10,000 of their members in England and Wales will also strike on overlapping dates.
That includes 6 February, when thousands of nurses will also walk out in what had already been billed as potentially the largest ever strike in the 75-year history of the NHS.
The extent of the crisis in emergency care came into sharper focus still on Friday, as analysis by The Independent of NHS data and harm estimates by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives found that a record number of patients suffered “severe harm” as a result of delays in December.
Nearly 6,000 patients suffered permanent or long-term harm due to long waits to hand over patients outside A&Es – up from just over 4,000 in November. A further 14,000 patients were likely to have suffered “moderate harm”, the analysis found.
Health secretary Steve Barclay has warned unions that paramedic strikes last week were not enough to “ensure patient and public safety”, as Rishi Sunak’s government pushes to impose minimum service levels.
But GMB pointed to NHS figures suggesting that ambulance delays actually fell on the day of the strikes – with delays of more than an hour in handing patients over to hospitals five times lower in England on 11 January compared to the non-strike day exactly one week prior.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Rather than act to protect the NHS and negotiate an end to the dispute, the government has disgracefully chosen to demonise ambulance workers.
“Ministers are deliberately misleading the public about the life and limb cover and who is to blame for excessive deaths.”
The newly announced industrial action will take see paramedics with Unite walk out on varying dates including 6, 17, 20, 22 February and 6 and 20 March in Wales and certain parts of England, while their colleagues in Northern Ireland will take action on 26 January and 16, 17, 23 and 24 February.
Unite’s ambulance workers are already set to walk out next Monday as the bitter row with the government remains deadlocked.
The resolution to the dispute is “in the government’s hands”, added Unite national lead officer Onay Kasab, accusing ministers of failing to enter proper negotiations.
“The government’s constant attempts to kick the can down the road and its talk about one off payments, or slightly increased pay awards in the future, is simply not sufficient to resolve this dispute,” he said.
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