South Central Ambulance Service workers vote on strike action over low pay and dangers to patient safety

More than 15,000 ambulance workers across 11 trusts in England and Wales begin voting on strike action today.

Workers from South Central Ambulance Service – which operates across Hampshire and Portsmouth – join workers across the country in the vote, which closes on 29 November:

Thousands more NHS workers will also be balloted across other NHS trusts, with more votes set to follow.

Workers are angry over the government’s imposed four per cent pay award, which constitutes a real-terms pay cut due to inflation of 10 per cent pushing up the cost of living.

Paramedics and ambulance workers are also calling for action to address unsafe staffing levels across the services.

Rachel Harrison, GMB acting national secretary, said: ‘Ambulance workers don’t do this lightly - and this would be the biggest ambulance strike for 30 years.

‘But more than ten years of pay cuts, plus the cost-of-living crisis, means workers can’t make ends meet. They are desperate.

‘But this is much more about patient safety at least as much about pay. Delays up to 26 hours and 135,000 vacancies across the NHS mean a third of GMB ambulance workers think a delay they’ve been involved with has led to a death.

‘Ambulance workers have been telling the Government for years things are unsafe. No one is listening. What else can they do?’

On Friday, staff at Portsmouth Magistrates Court joined 68 courts across England and Wales for a nine-day strike over a controversial case management system.