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Ambulance strike 2023 RECAP: NHS workers walk-out in row over pay

NHS AMBULANCE STRIKES RECAP: Unions announce they will not engage with pay review body – as up to 25,000 emergency workers walk-out

  • Steve Barclay accuses ambulance unions of putting patients at risk with chaos
  • READ MORE: Everything you need to know about today’s NHS 999 strike
  • Do YOU support the striking ambulance workers? Vote here and tell us why… 

By Joe Davies Health Reporter For Mailonline

Published: 02:13 EST, 11 January 2023 | Updated: 11:05 EST, 11 January 2023

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NHS ambulance workers took strike action again today after unions slammed ‘bitterly disappointing’ discussions with Government earlier this week.

This was MailOnline’s live blog for the industrial action marring the health service on January 11, 2023: 

  • Joe Davies

    Host commentator

An ex-nurse is supporting ambulance workers on the picket line after she lost her mum when she lay unconscious on the floor for four hours because of delays.

Tania Palmer, 55, has joined the 20,000 ambulance workers who have walked out over England and Wales today.

The regional manager for Unison, one of the UK’s largest trade unions, lost her beloved mother Christine Palmer, 77, when she passed away following a stroke in July 2022.

Today she has been visiting picket lines across the South West to support ambulance service strikes.

Ms Palmer, from Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, previously worked for the NHS as a nurse but has been in her current role since 2011.

She said: ‘My mother lay unconscious on the floor for four hours because of the ambulance delays, and she passed away.

‘That’s my personal story and why I am out today.

‘I moved to the trade union 11 years ago because I wanted to make life better for the staff, and make the provision of care better. I still want to.’

Paramedic Simon Day, 56, took to the picket line in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, and said colleagues were nursing patients for ’12 hours at a time in car parks and corridors’.

He said: ‘We have experienced the pressures of winter before but there has always been the promise of Spring after.

‘But over the last 18 months every month has got worse and worse, and it’s now so bad that our staff have been forced to strike. They’ve been pushed to the brink

‘More money is going out of their bank accounts than is going in each money and people can’t cope.

‘It has become so extreme that staff have been pushed to breaking point.’

A veteran paramedic has called for a UK-wide independent inquiry to be launched into ambulances services and the number of patient deaths being caused by extreme waiting times.

Rob Harrington, 59, who works for the Welsh Ambulance Service, was taking part in the 24-hour walk-out being staged by almost 1,500 GMB Union members over pay and working conditions on Wednesday.

Mr Harrington claimed thousands of ‘people are dying’ every year because of problems which have been allowed to accumulate.

Speaking from outside Basseleg Ambulance Station in Newport, he said: ‘The problem of queuing up outside hospitals has been going on since I started 16 years ago, and it’s just been cumulative over the years.

‘The past two to three years in particular has got to the point where we’ve just had to come out and say something.’

Scotland’s health minister today reminded patients the ambulance strikes in England and Wales will not affect services north the border today.

Cabinet Secretary for Health Social Care Humza Yousaf told people to ring 999 if they are having a medical emergency.

He tweeted: ‘Reminder ambulance strikes today are in England Wales only, not in Scotland. 

‘If you have medical emergency then do call 999. 

‘If not an emergency but you need medical advice then you can call your GP, NHS 24, Pharmacy First and other avenues available to provide support and advice.’

A doctor has claimed overflowing UK hospitals are worse than those in Ukraine and warned staff are at their wits’ end.

Paul Ransom works part time in the NHS in Sussex but also responds to natural disasters abroad and teaches medical skills in war-torn countries.

In a letter to his local newspaper The Argus, he said: ‘Sometimes I feel guilty at seeing my NHS colleagues trying to keep patients safe and sometimes even keep them alive in conditions that are worse than those I see in many hospitals I work in abroad.

‘In Ukraine, Georgia, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and many other places I have worked, I very rarely see corridors overflowing with patients waiting for a cubicle, with nursing and medical staff at their wits’ end how to pick the most serious patients to bring in into a resuscitation room doubling up on beds.’

Mail Online

Sir Keir Starmer has told Rishi Sunak he cannot legislate his way out of ’13 years of failure’ as he criticised the new anti-strike bill.

At the first Prime Minister’s Questions of the year, the Labour leader focused his line of attack on the NHS strikes and the current state of the National Health Service.

He told MPs: ‘When I clapped nurses, I meant it.’ And he insisted the PM’s response to ‘the greatest crisis in the history of the NHS’ is to threaten to ‘sack our nurses’.

It comes as the Government introduced the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill to Parliament, which would set minimum service levels for health, fire, education, transport, nuclear decommissioning and border security services.

Sir Keir said: ‘His Transport Secretary says it’s not the solution. His Education Secretary hopes it won’t apply in schools.

‘His own assessments say it could increase the number of strikes. The simple truth is you can’t legislate your way out of 13 years of failure. Between 2010 and 2019, before anyone had heard of Covid.’

Downing Street has rejected a call by the Royal College of Nursing for Rishi Sunak to intervene in their pay dispute to head off the next round of strikes.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘There is an independent process that makes recommendations which we have accepted. We don’t think that inserting the Prime Minister into that process is the right approach.’

The spokesman said it was ‘disappointing’ that the health unions had said they will not engage with next year’s independent pay review body process.

‘The health unions campaigned for their introduction. Obviously it is disappointing they have taken this step. We do think that it is in everyone’s interest for the unions to contribute,’ the spokesman said.

‘The Government will continue to engage in an independent process to ensure decisions are balanced (to meet) the needs of staff and the wider economy.’

Saffron Cordery, NHS Providers’ interim chief executive, said it was ‘too early’ to determine what impact the ambulance strikes would have on healthcare services but that she expected pressure to ‘mount’ during the day.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme, Ms Cordery said: ‘It is still emerging about the picture of what is going on.

‘Of course there will be disruption today but once again we have seen on the ambulance strike day reduced demand for ambulance services.

‘I think that it is fair to say that as the day goes on, the pressures will mount. That’s what we saw last time round with the industrial action.

‘We know that there will be disruption but the scale of it is hard to see at the moment.’

Ms Cordery said the NHS was able to ‘step forward and manage’ through industrial action, but that it was having a ‘knock-on effect’ on ‘waiting lists (and) treating people that need it in a timely fashion’.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak labelled today’s ambulance strikes ‘terrifying’ with Britons unsure if an ambulance will turn up to provide life-saving care when they call 999. 

His comments came as 25,000 NHS ambulance staff in England and Wales downed tools today in the latest industrial action in a dispute over pay.

Mr Sunak was responding to criticism from Sir Keir Starmer on ‘terrifying’ cancer treatment delays in the NHS in the House of Commons and launched his own attack on the Labour Leader’s refusal to support the Government’s anti-strike legislation. 

‘He talks about what’s terrifying Mr Speaker. What’s terrifying is that right now people not knowing whether when they call 999 they will get the treatment that they need,’ he said. 

Mail Online

Ambulance workers are out on strike today in an ongoing protest over pay and conditions.

Up to 25,000 ambulance staff, including NHS paramedics and emergency call handlers, will will stage walk outs. 

This follows similar strike action that took place in the run up to Christmas.

Today’s disruption was organised by the unions GMB and Unison, who have demanded the Government pay workers more amid the cost-of-living crisis. 

MailOnline readers were today asked if they support the striking NHS ambulance workers. Here’s 20 of the best-rated comments…

Mail Online

Rishi Sunak today said the right to strike should be balanced against patients’ right to life-saving healthcare as ambulance workers walked out in England and Wales.

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Sunak was accused of having ‘broken the NHS’ by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

The Prime Minister said: ‘No one denies the unions’ right to strike. 

‘But it is also important to balance that with people’s right to have access to life-saving healthcare at the same time.’

Watch the full spat here: 

NHS physios have announced their strike dates for this winter, adding to the growing body of health service staff preparing to walk off the job this winter. 

Union, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) has announced its members will strike on January 26 and February 9 in a dispute over pay and staffing in England.

It means they will join NHS ambulance staff as well as nurses in taking strike action later this month.

Union bosses said the first wave of strikes will see 4,200 NHS staff employed at 30 trusts walk away from their jobs later this month.

Mail Online

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said if the Prime Minister had negotiated with nurses and ambulance workers they would not be on strike, and accused him of ‘choosing to prolong misery’.

Sir Keir said: ‘In the 13 years of the last Labour government there were no national NHS strikes. If the Prime Minister had negotiated with the nurses before Christmas, they wouldn’t be on strike. If he had negotiated with the ambulance workers, they wouldn’t be on strike either.

‘So why is he choosing to prolong the misery rather than end these strikes?’

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: ‘We’ve always been clear that we want to have constructive dialogue with the unions. That is also why when it comes to the issue of pay we have accepted in full the independent recommendations of pay review bodies.

‘The honourable gentleman simply doesn’t have a policy when it comes to this question. He talks about wanting to end the strikes. The question for him is simple then: why does he not support our minimum safety legislation?’

‘We all know why … it’s because he’s on the side of his union paymasters, not patients.’

NHS ambulance staff return to the picket lines today, with tensions still frayed between the Government and union bosses.

But how many staff are taking part? Which areas of the country are affected? How will patients be impacted? And will it be worse than the December strikes?

Here, MailOnline answers all your questions on today’s 999 walk-outs.

Mail Online

Paramedics have described patients being left on floors for hours and ‘horrendous’ waits to hand people to AE staff, as they stood on picket lines today.

Jenny Giblin, 38, a paramedic, braved the cold in Birkenhead, Wirral, with her 16-month-old son James Evans.

She said: ‘I’ve been a paramedic for seven years and it’s definitely got worse.

‘We used to have to queue outside hospitals at certain times, like with winter pressures, but now it’s every day. Corridors are almost like wards.

‘Sometimes you spend a whole shift on a corridor.

‘It’s demoralising. I dread coming into work sometimes because I know what’s going to happen.’

NHS paramedics and emergency call handlers returned to the picket lines today in an ongoing protest over pay.

Up to 25,000 ambulance staff will take part in the coordinated chaos, which follows similar walk-outs that took place days before Christmas.

Even more strikes are on the way, with another round of industrial action pencilled in for January 23.

MailOnline app users can vote in the poll by clicking here.

Mail Online

Jeremy Corbyn today joined striking NHS ambulance workers on the picket line.

The former Labour leader joined Unison members who walked out in his constituency of Islington in North London this morning.

He tweeted: ‘Strikes do not undermine public safety.

‘Austerity, outsourcing and poor working conditions undermine public safety. Solidarity with ambulance staff striking for the safety of us all.’

Labour MPs today expressed their ‘absolute solidarity’ with striking NHS workers today, despite the Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting admitting ‘people may not get an ambulance when they need one’.

MPs including Kate Osborne, Paula Barker and Richard Burgontook to social media to pledge their support to the picket lines.

Here are a selection of their tweets:

Ambulance staff are ‘deeply conflicted’ about whether to strike or work today, an NHS boss claimed today.

Welsh Ambulance Trust chief executive Jason Killens said the ‘workplace experience for our staff is causing great concern’.

Here is his exchange on Sky News this morning:

A local union boss today said he has ‘never known morale to be so low’ in NHS ambulance staff.

GMB branch secretary and qualified paramedic Mark Dawn said the workload on workers is ‘relentless’.

Speaking from the picket line at the East Midlands Ambulance Service’s Beechdale Ambulance Station in Nottingham, he said: ‘The ambulance service is struggling in terms of staff retention, staff morale, pay, terms and conditions — everything falls at our doorstep.

‘In 34 years on this job, I’ve never known morale to be so low. The whole NHS system is broken and we want to try and fix it.’

A mother-of-two paramedic says she is striking because ‘if we don’t do anything about these conditions there won’t be an ambulance service and there won’t be an NHS’.

Jenny Giblin, on a picket line in Birkenhead, said: ‘I’ve been here long enough that I am on a better wage than some but I’m still sitting at home timing how long I’ve got the heating on for.

‘I’ve got two children under three. If I’m struggling, I don’t know how people on lower wage bands cope. People are living on overtime.

‘I finished working at midnight last night. I’ve got an elderly father and I thought “I really hope he doesn’t get ill today”.

‘We have got families and an ambulance strike is worrying for us, but if we don’t do anything about these conditions there won’t be an ambulance service and there won’t be an NHS.’

Health Secretary Steve Barclay has said he does not ‘think it is right’ to ‘retrospectively’ go back to April when it comes to reviewing this year’s pay offer to NHS staff.

It comes amid reports that he is considering backdating any 2023/24 pay rise, due to be finalised in the spring, to this month in order to boost the current year’s settlement offer.

Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if he is considering ‘reopening’ the current year’s pay negotiations, Mr Barclay said: ‘The purpose of the meeting on Monday was to look at this coming year’s pay review body and the evidence going in.

‘But of course it was an opportunity to listen to the trade unions in terms of their points on last year’s settlement.

‘I don’t think it is right to go all the way back to April and retrospectively look at April when we’re already under way in terms of this year’s pay review body.

‘But of course the unions made representations about that and what the Prime Minister said at the weekend is nothing is off the table.’

Doctors will not engage with the official pay review process unless it is reformed, union bosses warned today. 

Professor Philip Banfield, chair of council for the British Medical Association (BMA), said the process ‘is rigged from the start’.

Writing in The Times, he said: ‘Neither junior doctors nor consultants will even submit evidence this year, knowing the process is rigged from the start.’

He said the cost of restoring real-term cash to doctors after a decade of effective cuts would amount to ‘a mere fraction of the amount wasted on faulty PPE’.

Health unions will not be submitting evidence to the NHS pay review body for the next wage round while the current industrial disputes remain unresolved, it has been announced.

The 14 unions, representing more than one million ambulance staff, nurses, porters, healthcare assistants, physiotherapists and other NHS workers in England, have called for direct pay talks with ministers.

Unions said they believe the lengthy pay review body process is not able to deliver a deal that resolves the current pay and staffing dispute, which has led to a series of strikes, including a walkout by ambulance workers on Wednesday.

Officials said that in the current economic climate it would be better if NHS pay negotiations could be convened involving unions, employers and ministers.

Labour today warned patients ‘may not get an ambulance today when they need one’ because of today’s NHS strikes.

Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the mass walkout could prevent people getting the care they need.

He tweeted: ‘People may not get an ambulance today when they need one.

‘An even greater tragedy is that this was also true yesterday and will be true again tomorrow.’

Striking ambulance workers took to the picket line in Nottingham this morning.

East Midlands Ambulance Service staff in NHS uniforms line up outside Beechdale Ambulance station.

Up to around 25,000 ambulance workers across England and Wales could strike today. 


Ambulance workers on the picket line outside East Midlands Ambulance Service, Beechdale Ambulance station in Nottingham

An ambulance chief has warned against doing anything which ‘inflames’ the situation in the health sector, amid Government efforts around the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill.

Jason Killens, chief executive of the Welsh Ambulance Service, said the NHS should not become a less attractive place for people to work.

He told Sky News: ‘I think the new legislation going through Parliament… we’ll clearly keep a close eye on that and as the Bill passes through its various stages of reading. But I think the important thing for us is to ensure that we don’t do anything which inflames the current situation or makes the NHS a less attractive place for people to work.’

He said his service has been ‘working very closely with the unions taking strike action to agree the best set of exemptions we can so we can continue to provide emergency services to those immediately life-threatened patients across Wales’.

On Wednesday’s strike, he said: ‘For now, our priority, and certainly today, is seeking to respond to as many patients as we can as quickly as we can, recognising that those with less serious conditions will wait longer.’

A paramedic on the picket line today claimed he is having to limit the heating in his home because of poor pay.

Outside the Beechdale Ambulance Station in Nottingham, East Midlands Ambulance Service’s Nottinghamshire divisional HQ and training centre, half a dozen GMB union members were out on the picket line.

Vimal Mistry, a paramedic for seven years, said: ‘After the pandemic things have just got worse. People are queuing at hospitals, (queuing for) primary care.

‘People can’t get appointments anymore so they put off going to the doctor’s and when it gets worse they come to us.

‘Staff see all this and just get run down. With interest rates and fuel costs going up, people just can’t afford the things they could do before.

‘I’m now having to think about how much heating I have on in the house – I have it on for two hours now.’

An NHS doctor today said patients in critical care will ‘suffer the most today’, with AE departments already at ‘breaking point’ before the strikes.

Comment Attributable to Dr Mark Harmon, AE doctor and Clinical Entrepreneur at eConsult, said: ‘As an AE clinician working in the emergency department during today’s strike action, my first priority is the care of our patients.

‘But, given the government have not made a significant enough offer, it will be already burnt-out staff and patients in need of critical care who suffer the most today.

‘And the sad reality is that even without the ambulance strikes, Accident and Emergency departments are no longer just cracking at the seams. We’re at breaking point.’

Around 25,000 ambulance workers across England and Wales could strike today.  

NHS workers walking off job include paramedics, emergency care assistants as well as 111 and 999 call handlers. 

This round of industrial action is being coordinated by two NHS ambulance unions, GMB and Unison.

The below map shows how your area will be affected:

Steve Barclay cancelled his 9am meeting with medics today, a union claims.

The British Medical Association (BMA) — the trade union for doctors and medical students in the UK — said the Health Secretary shelved plans to ‘do media’.

A spokesperson said ‘a further meeting is not yet agreed’, adding ‘hopefully it will be soon’.

Thousands of junior doctors are voting on action to add to strikes conducted by nurses and ambulance staff, with a result expected by the end of February.

Asked about rumours of a one-off payment for staff, the Unison union’s head of health, Sara Gorton, told Times Radio: ‘The Secretary of State (Steve Barclay), as a result of the meeting on Monday, has acknowledged that he understands that to resolve the dispute they’ve got to look at not just focusing on what happens from April onwards, but, using his words, some sort of reach back into the current pay year.

‘There have been all sorts of rumours about the format that might take – about a backdated offer, a one-off payment as we’ve heard (Wales First Minister) Mark Drakeford announced he’s going to talk to unions about.

‘We’ve got the example of the improved deal in Scotland that’s going to be implemented.

‘So there’s all different types of opportunities there. But the way you explore those opportunities and identify what’s going to work best in the situation is through constructive talks, dialogue with unions and negotiations.’

Health Secretary Steve Barclay has criticised how ambulance unions had handled today’s industrial action across England and Wales.

Sky News asked him whether he agreed with comments made made by Business Secretary Grant Shapps that striking paramedics were being ‘reckless’.

The Health Secretary replied: ‘If there are delays to ambulances, then it is concerning in terms of our ability to get that care.

‘It is clearly a concern as to the impact it has on patient safety.’

Mail Online

The Health Secretary said people should use their ‘common sense’ when it comes to what activities they do on Wednesday during ambulance worker strikes in England and Wales.

Steve Barclay, asked on Times Radio whether the public should change their behaviour to avoid ambulance call-outs, said: ‘We’re saying to people to use their common sense.

‘People can see that today is going to be a very challenged day for the ambulance service.

‘The focus will be on those life-threatening incidents and ensuring those are addressed, but there will be strain on the rest of the system.

‘So, we are just saying to people, use their common sense.

‘Of course, if it is genuinely life threatening, then they should phone 999.’

Rachel Harrison, national secretary of the GMB union, challenged the Government to define safe staffing levels in the NHS.

Asked about new anti-strike laws, Ms Harrison told Sky News: ‘We’re obviously very anti that and we will campaign against that.

‘I think what I found most shocking about the speech that was made yesterday was some mistruths in there about the fact that our ambulance members didn’t put safety measures in place during the last strike – which was incorrect.

‘It wasn’t factual what they said when they referenced that ambulance services had not put minimum safety levels in place, we did.

‘I suppose what I’d like to question as the Bill progresses through Parliament, is what is their definition of minimum safety levels?’

The GMB union said it was ‘horrendous’ that some NHS staff are among the lowest paid in the country.

Rachel Harrison, the union’s national secretary, told Sky News: ‘The lowest paid in the NHS – so for us in the ambulance service this is call handlers, the patient transport drivers – had to have a top-up to their wages by NHS employers so that they didn’t breach national minimum wage laws.

‘What we’re going to see again this year is exactly the same thing, because the pay review body process will not have been followed through by April.

‘What we will see again is people fall below the national minimum wage – that is horrendous in the NHS.

‘These are the people that we stood on our doorsteps for and clapped for two years, and now that are the lowest paid in the country.’

NHS paramedics and emergency call handlers returned to the picket lines today in an ongoing protest over pay.

Up to 25,000 ambulance staff will take part in the coordinated chaos, which follows similar walk-outs that took place days before Christmas.

Even more strikes are on the way, with another round of industrial action pencilled in for January 23.

Mail Online

The GMB union said that lives were being put at risk in the NHS ‘every single day’ and not just as a result of strike action.

‘I think what we’ve actually seen is across the NHS and the ambulance services, day in and day out, is that people are suffering, patients are suffering,’ the union’s national secretary Rachel Harrison told Sky News.

‘That’s regularly reported by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, who report that patient safety standards are suffering as a result of the crisis that our NHS is facing

‘Lives have been put at risk every single day, not because of these strikes. I absolutely disagree with what Grant Shapps has said.

‘I can guarantee you the GMB local teams and representatives across the country have worked around the clock with local employers to make sure that emergency procedures are in place.

‘On the last strike day what we actually saw was paramedics, emergency care assistants and others leaving the picket lines to go and attend to emergencies – our members do not want to put lives at risk.

‘What they’re saying to us is lives are being be put at risk every single day regardless of the strike and that is one of the issues.’

Steve Barclay was critical of the way ambulance unions had handled Wednesday’s industrial action across England and Wales.

Sky News asked him whether he agreed with comments made made by Business Secretary Grant Shapps that striking paramedics were being ‘reckless’.

The Health Secretary replied: “If there are delays to ambulances, then it is concerning in terms of our ability to get that care.

‘It is clearly a concern as to the impact it has on patient safety.’

Asked about whether anti-strike legislation the UK Government announced in Parliament this week would look to prosecute striking workers, Mr Barclay said: ‘It is about the behaviour much more of the unions than individual members.

‘For example, there is a marked difference between what we’ve seen with the RCN (Royal College of Nursing), who put national arrangements in place to guarantee safety, and what we’ve seen with the ambulance strikes, where even up to midnight last night I was getting calls in terms of what arrangements would be in place in terms of the local cover, the minimum safety levels that would be in place, because ambulance unions had refused to do that at a national level.’

NHS ambulance staff return to the picket lines today, with tensions still frayed between the Government and union bosses. 

But how many staff are taking part? Which areas of the country are affected? How will patients be impacted? And will it be worse than the December strikes? 

Here, MailOnline answers all your questions on today’s 999 walk-outs. 

Mail Online

The public has been urged to avoid calling 999 as today’s ambulance strike will leave the health service in an even worst position than the December walkouts. 

Up to 25,000 paramedics and support staff – including call handlers – will walk out across the country for the second time this winter in an ongoing dispute over pay.  

NHS managers expressed concern that the new wave of walkouts would cause more ‘significant disruption’ than December strikes, leaving the health service in ‘an even more precarious position’.

Union leaders have promised life and limb cover but government sources have expressed concerns about a lack of agreement over emergency care.  

Mail Online

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