Ambulance workers will walk out on December 21
(Picture: PA Wire)Ambulance drivers could become too frustrated with the Government over pay negotiations to provide "life and limb care", a union officer has warned.
Alan Lofthouse, National Officer at Unison, told Sky News that staff "may choose" not to provide life and limb cover if the Government does not reopen discussions over pay with health unions.
Ambulance workers and other NHS staff will stage a strike co-ordinated by the GMB, Unison and Unite on December 21 in a dispute over pay. It comes just days after members of the Royal College of Nursing walk out on December 15 and 20 in a separate dispute over pay and conditions.
"Life and limb care" refers to critical care, such as a cardiac arrest. Unison has said that it will never instruct its members to withdraw critical care as part of industrial action.
Mr Lofthouse said: "The trouble is, if the Government don’t start talking to us, the staff will get increasingly frustrated with this war against them as they see the rhetoric from the Government.
“And they then may choose not to provide life and limb cover, which is a place that I don’t think any of us wants to get to.
“So there’s a real urgency for the Government to wake up, stop looking at ways to prevent striking workers from striking and talk to us about paying the cost of living.”
Mr Lofthouse said the military cannot replace trained ambulance workers without affecting the service.
“Well I think that all of our ambulance workers in Unison respect the military and respect the support that they’re offering, but of course, your correspondent called us ambulance drivers…
“This is far from the truth, actually, they’re highly trained, urgent emergency care workers who know how to work in the NHS, and the military can’t just be put in place of ambulance workers and expect that the service is going to run as normal.
“I mean, it’s a great offer by the military, but it’s not going to go anywhere near stopping the strikes and walkouts that are due to happen on the 21st.”
Health Secretary Steve Barclay on Monday refused to budge on awarding NHS workers a further pay rise after the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) suggested they would call off the strikes were he to reopen negotiations.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he claimed that giving nurses a pay rise would mean taking money away from funding for clearing the NHS backlog in operations.
He said nurses had spoken to him about a range of challenges in the NHS such as tech, working conditions and security, “but we do have an independent pay review body" and their decision would have to be "honoured".
Steve Brine, chairman of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, became the first senior Tory to urge Mr Barclay to change position and meet with the RCN to discuss pay.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: “I started by saying it was 1-0 to the RCN with the move they made yesterday.
“I would suggest that the Secretary of State could get to 1-1 by inviting them in and actually I’m not sure that he’s got an awful lot to lose.
“You know, draw-draw better than war-war, and at the moment we’re in a media war-war and the patients, the public who pay for this service are just sort of left bemused in the middle.”
