Ambulance strike is disgraceful?

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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

Gaslighting!!!!!!!!

Again - totally ignorant.

How do you expect to recruit and retain if the pay isn't commensurate with the job? It's the lack of recruitment and retention that is destroying the service and making people die unnecessarily.

If it's such a cushty well paid job - why don't you go and do it and why aren't millions of others????

yabu

I mean I wish I could post my job here and tell you all what I do for 10.80 an hour for the NHS. Look people can’t live on that. And be burnt out and have no life. It’s retention and recruitment like pp said. Staff are just leaving.

The unions are the biggest Labour Party donors!!

So? Why shouldn't they be? And which Party is best-placed to get the Tories out of office anyway?

So you'd rather they all leave and get other, better paying, less stressful jobs? No bugger will be coming out to your sick child or parent then.

Again, blame the government. All the collective bargaining, petitions, protests, lobbying have been tried for years. The government hasn't budged an inch, has completely ignored it all, because they WANT this crisis, they WANT the NHS to fail so that it can be swept aside and replaced with a private system they and their backers can grow rich on. They don't give a shiny shit how many kids and parents have to die for that to happen because it sure as shit isn't going to be theirs. The government have been playing chicken with the health unions hoping they'd be too afraid of bad press to do the one thing they can't simply ignore - strike. They've lost the game because these people are now desperate.

Indeed, and it was mostly the old people who need the NHS the most that did this. Project Fear they called it.

That word, I don't think it means what you think it means.

I wonder if those who think it's a "disgrace" are the same people who have long said "well if they don't like the T&C then they should find another job"?

The strike isn't just about their pay right now. It's about the fact that ambulance staff are leaving because they - understandably - don't want to put up with awful working conditions, and they are struggling to recruit because of the T&C. Pay impacts on the future of the service - if you can't attract people into the job then you have a problem.

Unsurprisingly, people aren't keen on signing up to do a job which has long hours, carries huge physical risk and mental load, all the while knowing that if you make a mistake it could kill someone, for a starting salary of £27,055. Let's put that number into context:

After tax and deductions (including pension) according to the NHS, your monthly take-home pay is £1729.51. Source here

From that, you are supposed to fund your life - including living close enough to the ambulance base to not have a totally miserable commute. Needless to say a car is essential, because if you are coming off shift at 3am then good luck getting public transport at that time. The one positive is that your starting salary is just below the threshold for student loan repayments, but as it's by less than £250 any kind of pay bump as you progress up the bandings will take you into repayments and your monthly income will reduce further. Needless to say that rent will swallow a huge chunk of your take-home pay and you are going to struggle to save to buy a property of your own.

But hey, what's not to love? All of this in exchange for people telling you you're a disgrace, whilst you rub the sore arm where a patient hit you, and wonder if you can find the time to get changed out of the urine soaked trousers you're in, because a patient seized and lost control of their bladder when they did. But the pain and the smell take your mind off the fact that it's 8pm and you haven't eaten since you started at 8 this morning, and despite the fact that you should be finishing now, you got a last minute call and now have an elderely and confused patient in the van, who cannot be left to sit in A&E as they are vulnerable, but you are in a queue outside the waiting room because there aren't enough staff - and not enough room in A&E - to hand your patient over.

Something is a disgrace - and it's not the fact that staff are striking.

I'm very worried about needing and not being able to get an ambulance for my very frail, very elderly mum. She had a fall a few days ago and luckily didn't need an ambulance but it could happen again at any time. I've read awful stories about elderly people waiting hours for for ambulances in great pain. One thread on mumsnet. You wouldn't treat a dog like that. If it happens to my mum I will blame the strikers who could help but won't. I have a lot of sympathy with them but I will still blame them.

Why not strike for a better NHS then????
In the summer when less people will die?

Remember that heatwave we had this summer when we had higher than average deaths? You would have ranted too then.

HAHAHAH hardly! Learn the meaning of words before you spout shit!

If you voted Tory - you’ve contributed to the Tory party slowly destroying the NHS and that is why there’s all these strikes now.

well done love!!!!

YABU

You win the prize for most ridiculous post on this thread. It's difficult to know where to start with the untruths. Stop reading the Mail, and most importantly stop believing it.

I know that nurses in scbubu and itu are paid on the same payscale as others. My point is that the union implys that all nurses - regardless of what they do - are paid a pittance. Your two nurses carrying out intricate work will not be earning entry level wages, which is the level most often quoted.
I've never worked in healthcare, no. That's because I didn't choose to do so. I just get fed up with the unquestioning hero worship from the general public who, in reality, I think have no idea what nurses actually earn beyond 'a pittance' and 'not enough'.

YABU

Yes, they should strike.
They've been abused and fobbed off for decades.

I read an article related to this that mentioned David Cameron's austerity decades.
I had to go look up what that utter cunt is worth now.
He's worth at least £37.8 million.
No austerity for him and his lot.

Think of these despicable arses who gutted the NHS all the while lining their pockets.
Think of them when you can't afford to put the heat on.

YABU

YABU - we should be ashamed that they have to go in strike to get a living wage. Same with nurses.
they don’t need us f-ing clapping for them, they need to be paid fairly

Maybe if there was a £50 charge for using an ambulance there wouldn't be a problem as more people would get themselves to hospital instead of blagging a free ride and no parking charges

I’m short sighted? and how many nursing and paramedic positions will the NHS have to cut to get to a 19% pay raise for those left? Hmmm? The money has to come from somewhere. You’re in la la land if you think such a massive pay increase will mean that the U.K. can also afford to recruit way more Front line staff.

I know people are dying already but it’s absolutely disgusting to argue that because some are dying, it’s ok to just throw more bodies on the pile for any reason.

It would be like arguing, oh well fifty asylum seekers have drowned in the Channel. People are DYING, so we the coast guard and search and rescue plus we volunteers of the RNLI are going on strike until the Gov “sets up safe routes for asylum seekers” (which is fucking lip service propaganda) but really the demand they give to the government is: pay us more money. And then they go wave signs about in London, grinning ear to ear while people drown in the Channel day after day after day after day. And then say “blame the government not me”

No. It isn't until, it's been happening far, far longer than today or last month...and many of us have been dealing with that. Including death in the family -and I do speak personally. That was 3 years ago in March. We wish it was otherwise. I support the strikes,

The problem is though- recruitment and retention is an issue for everyone right now. It is in my job, and its affecting everyone I know who runs a business (and even those who pay VERY well). I spoke with a manager of a famous football club recently (at a business networking event) and even they are struggling to recruit, people are just not turning up to interviews etc and they pay well, and are well known/famous. Everyone is a bit bewildered where everyone has gone and whilst pay is obv important, if even well paid, prestigious jobs are going unfilled then its clearly not merely about money. Its been called "the great resignation" for this reason. Therefore, even a pay rise is not guaranteed to attract new people into the profession. Its extremely odd considering the increased costs of living. Lots of people now want to work from home permanently following furlough which could be part of the issue.

YABU. What a horrible post. Yes it’s a caring profession but they still deserve good pay.

I presume you’re currently retraining to work in the NHS then? There’s thousands of vacancies which mean people are currently getting substandard care. In fact, surely those who are trying the “you mustn’t let people die” argument are either already working in emergency services or training to do so. Because otherwise you yourself are putting your current pay and conditions ahead of the hundreds of patients you could save if you retrained.

This. There's plenty of vacancies. You're more than welcome to work 12 hours shifts on Xmas eve, Xmas day and Boxing Day and be happy with the poor pay, crap conditions, no staff and a brewing UTI.

I am laughing at the idea that you were ever going to vote Labour.
Lobby the Tory government to do better. If not to pay better, then to improve conditions so that every day is not like a strike day.

Do you really really think that no one has died on other days because of over stretched resources? Ambulance strike days will be no worse than these.