Ambulance strike is disgraceful?

[somethingdifferenttoday]

I just read this on bbc news, "Unions say life-threatening callouts will continue to be responded to over the next 24 hours but some urgent calls, for example for late-stage labour or a fall in the home, might not be answered."

Is it just me who thinks this is disgraceful?

Late stage labour at home or an elderly person laying with a broken hip ARE emergencies! I'm not sure how people in a caring profession can strike knowing these calls will go unanswered.

The unions talk about the backlog, paramedics stuck outside hospitals in ambulances unable to unload and go back out on the road but then admit they are striking for more pay rather than as a protest about that. The average salary of ambulance staff of £47,000 and a 4% pay rise isn't enough they claim but if they are given a pay rise, they will stop striking.

I think they do deserve more money (we all do with inflation) but I can't get past them supposedly being in a caring profession but taking steps that WILL cause extra deaths regardless.

I work in the private sector and have had zero pay rise. If I went on strike nobody would die and I'd be fired. This approach is abusing the critical position of their roles. I hope they are not given a pay rise as it will just demonstrate that blackmail works to other public sector workers and we will have even more strikes.

YABU = I support them striking
YANBU = I agree, it's disgraceful behaviour from a caring profession

Why not strike for a better NHS then????

In the summer when less people will die?

Disgusting. Honestly disgusting.

You just have to laugh at posts like this! DP is a paramedic. They start on band 5 for 2 years whilst newly qualified (27k) then have to do continuous development and evidence it to move to band 6 (33k) moving to 40k after FIVE years. So not sure how the average salary of ambulance staff is 47K, considering ECAs who also work on the ambulances as support/drivers are band 3 which is 21-23k! Who also have to fund their own qualifications, see the same horrendous things as the paramedics do, also have to stay many hours if they get called to a job even 30 seconds prior to the end of their shift. Meal breaks are non existent. It is not just about pay!

I’ve not read the full thread but I am a midwife, and we are currently working at a staffing rate much lower than what is expected if we were to strike. We’d probably be better staffed striking than we are now. Says a lot really doesn’t it…

You again!
Your last thread on this subject was deleted.

Anyway - YABVU. As I said on the last thread, NHS workers deserve better pay and conditions of work, and the country deserves an NHS which is fit for purpose.

Lobby your MP if you don't like it. And stop saying you didn't get a pay rise for five years because it isn't true.

@PearlclutchersInc Who is Steve?

To those of you who disagree with the strikes, would you ever consider working as a health care professional or in education (or advise your children to pursue these professions)? And if not, why not?

I’m a teacher, married to a teacher, many family members are teachers … I will not be advising my children to pursue this career and what future will we have then when younger people stop entering these professions?

Not a paramedic or a health worker.

So how many people died due to ambulance wait times yesterday? Last week? Will be an interesting comparison. Happy to blame the workers but not their bosses? The blame for this lies squarely with 12 years of conservative government underfunding of public sector, as I linked earlier (from right wing research). Enough is enough.

Ha! Yourself

You and your ignorance are why the NHS will collapse.

The Tory party have been destroying bit by bit - Jeremy Hunt ring any bells? - the entire time they’ve been in power.

Pure ignorance. But you continue to lap up everything the Tory press and party tell you, dear. See where it gets you.

Of course they do
I worked as a call handler for a decade, and it was bad then. When you're stuck listening to someone pleading, and there is nobody to send
People are dying anyway because they are t getting an ambulance

Listening to everything from mass shootings to domestic abuse to a husband saying goodbye to his wife of 50 years, CPR on babies... I wake up in the night sometimes sweating because of stuff I heard and there are things I'll never forget. For a take home of what, £1600pm?
Handling hundreds of calls a day, seeing queue after queue

Did it matter to you that they were dying because of shortfalls in NHS care before today? And what were you doing about it then?

I can see the issues alright.
I can also see the unions and everyone colluding with them making things a 100% worse at the most difficult time of the year.

It is a disgrace.

I didn't realise they got £47k, no sympathy here then, care workers get little above minimum wage

You are angry with the wrong people. Try our feckless government who have forced these strikes. Try the people who voted Tory for financial reasons for themselves without seeing the bigger picture.

Steve Barclay.

You don't allow people to die to make your point.

Surely it depends. We send munitions to Ukraine, go to war ourselves, prioritise covid so cancer patients die, refuse lifesaving drugs if they’re too expensive, allow “poverty wages” so people become ill from lack of food and heating, accept some people owning multiple homes while others die of homelessness. These are all political decisions which kill people.

The ambulance service going on strike to highlight pay and conditions is a good thing, imo. I’d bet good money that more people die through an inadequately funded NHS than a day of strikes.

YABU
The pay and conditions are shocking. People are already having to wait hours and hours due to the state of the service. I worked as a 999 call handler last year and it is soul destroying answering the phone to an elderly person who is calling for the 10th time because they have been on the floor for 12hrs. I fully support them striking.

I am one of those people on £69.70 pw. I totally support the strikes. And they are not all on £47k. That is just Tory propaganda.

They really don't get 47k. Paramedic wage is band 6 33-40k and care assistants who accompany them are band 3 21-23k.

YABU. A pay increase will help the recruitment and retention crisis in the NHS. Its not holding the country to ransom/greedy/whatever other super Tory soundbite you want to add in.

I heard a lot of chat about "why is is all about pay" during the teacher strikes in Scotland recently - I think what a lot of people don't realise is that you can only withhold labour about specific things. The ambulance staff can't strike about having to be stuck outside a hospital with one patient for a whole shift but they can strike about a real term pay cut. A subsequent payrise may lead to better staffing and therefore a better service.

Blame the government, not the workers. You know in Scotland the whole strike was called off because the devolved government came up with an improved deal? Its possible for the government down south to do as well. Any blood is on the Conservatives hands.

@Venetiaparties - responses are late already, people are dying already because the entire service is suffering from years and years of cuts.
We need the government to decide to invest in improving the service. A big part of that is to set wages to recruit and retain, not to set harsh limits in the guidelines for the pay review board.

A quick google would help. Paramedic

It’s disgraceful that paramedics have been left out to cold for so long.

Go watch a few episodes of ambulance and educate yourself on what they have to deal with.

Paramedics are some of the most important people in our society. They absolutely deserve better pay and better working conditions.

Obviously it will be the people that aren't capable of getting better jobs

I am shocked at the people calling paramedics a disgrace for striking. I am sure that they would not do this if they felt there was another way.

I cannot sit and comment on their working conditions as I have no idea what they go through. I know that it would take a lot out of me personally to be subject to abuse from patients, physically attacked, things thrown at ambulances, having to see people suffer and die regularly, not being able to help people they really want to help due to being held up in ambulance queues. That must take a toll mentally. Imagine being in a queue waiting to drop a patient off and having an emergency call on the system where someone is dying? Everything in your body would say to rush to them but they can't. They can't abandon the patient they currently have care of.

These frontline workers deserve what they are asking for. You couldn't get an ambulance anyway before the strikes so it is going to make very little difference. Plus the military have been brought in for cat 1 calls.

I have huge respect for paramedics and nurses and every time I have had to use the service, I have always thanked them and praised their work. They have always been kind and friendly despite the pressure they are under, that takes a lot out of a person.

I hope it all gets sorted for everyone's sake.

Quote : Demanding a 19% increase is quite frankly fucking beyond ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As Ian Hyslop so rightly said the other day have this government ( or some mumsnetters see above quote ) never heard of the term negotiations ?
This is the starting point and by MEETING with each other then a deal is made, but when this totally useless ineffective shirkers of a government won’t even attend meetings with the nurses union then there is no hope of negotiation .