More than 2,600 additional ambulance workers plan to strike in late January over pay, the trade union Unite announced on Friday.
Unite’s members will join colleagues belonging to Unison in striking on 23 January, with hospital bosses calling for “serious talks” between the government and unions to avoid “even more pressure on already overstretched NHS services”.
The strike marks an escalation in the dispute, with more workers due to take industrial action than during the pre-Christmas strike.
Staff in Wales, the north-west, north-east and east Midlands will strike for 24 hours, while a strike in the West Midlands will last for 12 hours from 6am to 6pm. Unite members working for the Welsh ambulance service will also be taking an initial day of industrial action on 19 January.
As with December’s ambulance strikes, “life and limb” emergency cover will be in place during the action, Unite said.
“Unite’s ambulance workers have been left with no option but to take industrial action,” said Unite’s general secretary, Sharon Graham. “They are fighting to protect patients, to save the ambulance service and the NHS itself, as well as providing for their families.”
Graham said the government had had “months to intervene and end this dispute” but had “failed to do so”.
“The talks the government has lined up for Monday yet again look like nothing more than a smokescreen and are clearly not a negotiation on NHS pay,” she said.
Unite’s national lead officer, Onay Kasab, said: “The government has repeatedly missed open goals to resolve this dispute. Unions have been invited to talk and then told they can’t talk about pay, in a pay dispute.
“The general public must be as mystified, as are our ambulance workers, as to why the government is not moving heaven and earth to resolve this dispute.”
Saffron Cordery, NHS Providers’ interim chief executive, called for “serious talks, specifically about pay” between the government and unions to avert additional strikes.
“Another strike will pile even more pressure on already overstretched NHS services,” Cordery said. “There is huge strain on the whole health and social care system and trusts fear that more strikes will just make an extremely challenging situation worse.
“We understand how strongly ambulance staff feel and how below-inflation pay awards, the cost of living crisis, severe staff shortages and ever-increasing workloads have brought them to this point.”
More than a quarter of ambulance patients in England waited more than an hour to be admitted to A&E in the last week of 2022, amid “one of the most difficult” winters in NHS history. The NHS estimated 18,720 patients were affected – likely to be highest recorded by the service.
Ambulance workers belonging to Unison and the GMB Union will also be striking on Wednesday next week.
The Department of Health and Social Care has been contacted for comment.
