NHS/Ambulance Strikes

[peppapig79]

I'm probably going to cause a lot of controversy here, thats not my intention it's with genuine interest do you support these strikes?

I 100% support the strikes especially having worked in social care and for the NHS and seeing the issues with my own eyes.

Yes I do, it scares the shit out of me, but I support them.

I understand why they are striking and sympathise but I don't support it, I think it's going to cause huge public anger against the nhs and my staff already get the crap kicked out of them daily. I think there's bugger all chance of this government, in this climate, fuelling inflation with a pay OR funding increase. And the whole system is so fragile that one person off sick can compromise care so what do you think a stroke will do? Multiple deaths directly related unfortunately,

100% yes.

Will it be effective - 100% no.

I'm a paramedic.
Let me say now that we do not take this action lightly - but - we will still be responding to the highest acuity calls. We will still have ambulances on the road. Not one colleague I know would stand on a picket line and refuse to attend a cardiac arrest/heart attack/stroke. We know that the lower acuity calls will wait, but they are waiting now longer than they ever should. And it's fucking heartbreaking, demoralising and soul destroying.
We know, that the elderly fallers with a ?#nof that have been waiting already for several hours will likely not have an ultimately positive outcome.
There are only so many times a shift we can say sorry. And we shouldn't be, as it's not our fault.

We have seen what is effectively pay cuts (again) for the last 8/10years.
Our work load, by virtue of piss poor management and leadership from the higher echelons, has increased 10 fold.
That is the knock on effect of the whole mismanagement and funding cuts from across the NHS board.

We are experiencing lengthier response times, longer waits at hospitals, no one to refer back to.

After the horrors of covid we have this. It's come to this and I am ashamed and outraged all at once.
We have to make a stand.
And I will stand with all of my NHS colleagues, because I understand why.

Sorry for the rant, long day, off late, too many apologies made.
Swimming in treacle come to mind.

@Northernlurker there are deaths daily at the moment as a direct result of our response times. Demand far outstrips supply.
Deaths are occurring on the backs of those ambulances that are sat outside what is considered a safe place (hospital)
The whole fucking thing is broken beyond repair and it's fucking terrifying as to where we will lurch to next.
As I've assured, ambulances will still be responding on strike days. Call takers will still be receiving abuse taking calls.
To be completely honest, strike action will make absolutely no difference in general day to day running at the moment.
We are drowning in a turbulent sea of calls and demand already.

With regards to public anger towards the NHS, this is happening already. Everyone clapped during Covid and called us Heroes (I worked on wards during the pandemic) but it wasn't long before people turned on the NHS.

I have a friend who is a paramedic so I completely understand no paramedic takes this lightly and I know none of you would ever refuse to attend a life saving call. I feel so sad that you all have to deal with this when all you want to do is save life's and provide the care that you are trained and love to do.
Thank you for the rant, its important and thats why I started the thread so we are all seeing what's on TV and MSM, social media but we need to hear it from the horses mouths.
NHS is a shit show, it has been for years and I am saying it as someone who loves the NHS but we can no longer provide the care it was set up to provide.

I just can’t see what it’s going to achieve, but I support it.

100% support. Look at the vitriol and bile spilled at nhs etc now when staff are working their hardest and are broken.
Shitty posts like 'you're in this job to be kind/help when asked/put others first, if you don't want to leave the job'
So 100% support.

Morally no. People will die - high acuity calls or not. 19% pay rise is clown territory.

But agree with PP that it will turn people against the NHS and hopefully accelerate the demise of the shitshow it has become.

Im on the fence. I agree completely with them saying enough is enough about the state of the NHS but 19% pay rise I just don’t think is right.

Sadly as with any strike it’s going to be the most vulnerable who are affected.

No I don't support strike action for front line services like this
Its not justified because peoples lifes are already at risk , to then have them more at risk
19% pay rise is huge and whilst i think many in nhs are underpaid ( some are not and these rises end up with all getting ) money alone can now not fix the nhs.
I think getting public more onside will help more
But as people ,if people have to wait even longer due to strikes or loose a relative etc thats all you remember not why they were striking
We all have to accept higher taxes as well to pay more which many don't want to do but then want better services.
Its all round shit but I don't think striking is the answer.

Yes, I do. However, no doubt the Daily Fail amd the like will likely attribute any deaths over the strike period to the strike rather than the current state of our underfunded and under resourced NHS which is the root cause of the problem.

Please can I ask a really dumb question.

If the paramedics will still attend the threats to life calls etc … won’t that be their whole day working as normal 🧐 I don’t mean to be rude and must just be missing something. Thanks xxx

Why is it clown territory? In real terms NHS workers have taken a pay cut for years.
We should be livid with the Tories and rioting in the streets

No idea if anyone is interested but the ambulance service is not an emergency service. While this might seem like semantics it has real consequences in terms of funding and terms and conditions for staff. No government of any colour has seen fit to do anything about that.

As an NHS nurse I have voted to strike, it was a very difficult decision going back and forth. I don't know what else we can do. Work to rule is impossible. I am currently off as I was close to a breakdown directly related to work load. The only way for me to get everything completed at work was to work so hard I became ill. What I mean by that is delaying my morning break in until at least midday and I started work at 7am. I would then delay my lunch until about 5pm but would get interrupted/answer emails/ flatten the off duty and often finish before my break to get back to the ward. Then, without fail I would finish late ready to do it all again the next day.

If I didn't work like this would not be able to admit all of our post op or A&E patients.

It is dangerous and unsafe. Bloods and tests are not always done in a timely manner as there are not enough staff, so it's late in the day when we realise a patient is unwell so, begin treatment into the night (always more unsafe as further reduced staffing). I cannot look after the current patient load as my trust is fixated on getting all the surgical patients onto my ward. This means moving patients to other areas sometimes multiple times. We then 'board' patients so have an extra patient lodged in the bay's, these patients do not have oxygen/curtains/bell. I cannot help but think it's deliberate so we are forced to work harder to discharge other patients.

We are always short staffed and yet staff are always moved.

What else can we do? I am a very experienced senior nurse and am probably going to leave. Like many of my colleagues I cannot continue. It kills me to see the poor care we give and it seems to be accepted as 'normal' now.

@xxcatcatcatxx

It's not a dumb question at all.

In essence, we will still be providing a skeleton service as a full walkout I believe is not allowed.
This goes way back to the dispute of 89/90 where 'ambulance drivers' then took to picket lines for many weeks, and the army were deployed as cover.
It was this strike action which drove the ambulance services as you see them now - highly skilled clinicians with a raft of acquired knowledge in pre hospital care.
It's kind of why ambulance staff hate the term 'driver' now.
Ive colleagues that were involved in that dispute, they fought hard to bring us in line with Fire and Police services, to receive funding to train staff to a high level.
And a PP is right, ambulance services are technically an 'essential service' rather than an emergency service.

Personally, I think a 19% pay rise is completely unattainable but, we do deserve more than what we were currently offered.
This is so much more than just about a pay rise.

Sorry, I derailed!

As I've said, there will still be ambulances to cover the most serious of calls.
Cat1 and some Cat2 calls which unfortunately are often over triaged....
Cat3 and Cat4 calls will have to wait longer unfortunately and this is the double edged sword.
An example of a Cat3 would be an elderly faller - the likelihood is that that kind of call could be a hip fracture, the prognosis for these patients is poor if they incur lengthy delays.
It's something we face daily already and it breaks me sometimes when we are en route to a faller, who has already had a long lie, to be cancelled for a Cat1 25 year old that 'can't breathe' - we rock up and said 25 yr old has a blocked nose (this has genuinely happened).

Sorry, again, that probably didn't answer your question.
As it stands at the moment, with current delays etc strike action won't have a huge impact, but we do have to make a stand.

*Why is it clown territory? In real terms NHS workers have taken a pay cut for years.

We should be livid with the Tories and rioting in the streets*

Yawn. DH is NHS and on about £115k - hardly starvation rations. It’s clown territory because everyone knows - including you I suspect - that no bugger will come out of this with a 20% pay rise. But hopefully the army drivers who are already paid about 30% LESS than the paramedics will stop too many old ladies dying because you lot fancy an extended Christmas break.

You riot if you like. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yawn. DH is NHS and on about £115k - hardly starvation rations.

If that's true, then you also know full well that that's about 3 times the salary of a paramedic and 4 times the salary of an ambulance tech. But as long as you and your DH are alright eh?

But hopefully the army drivers who are already paid about 30% LESS than the paramedics

Paramedics are much more than drivers.

A private just starting out in their career will be on less than someone that has completed a degree in their chosen field, as it should be. It also doesn't account for the fact that the soldier will pay barely anything for accommodation (in the block or on the patch it's very very reasonable and in the block at least utilities are included), they also get supplements such as get you home pay and detached duty payments. Most drivers will probably be lance jacks anyway and on more than some paramedics, not to mention call handlers and ambulance technicians who earn a very low wage.

If your DH is on 115k and yet doesn't agree with a raise for lower paid members of the NHS then he is very much part of the problem.

People are dying anyway due to the lack of staff and resources so that argument is a bit redundant to be honest.

The pandemic has shown everyone that the people who do the real work in society are the people who get treated the worst and paid the least
We can all see this very clearly now and the genie will not go back in the bottle

You wrote “NHS workers have taken a real terms pay cut”. My point is they’re not all - or even mostly - poorly paid.

The fact remains that nobody is getting a 19% pay rise and rightly so. Even asking for that makes you appear greedy and economically illiterate. You’re just damaging your own reputations, risking the lives of the most vulnerable in society and burning your goodwill.

Many are poorly paid though compared to their equivalents in similarly affluent countries and with other workers in this country with similar length training and responsibilities earn. The issue is if something doesn't change and people continue to leave there will be even less of a functioning health service than there is now, and vulnerable people will suffer the most from that.

I also think the people doing those jobs have had a chance to step off the treadmill - during multiple imposed covid isolations, when they might have been well - and realised how much it impacts their health and wellbeing. Now, agency and non-healthcare jobs pay more than they're getting, with less stress and better conditions, and they know they have other options, and they know what it feels like to be off the treadmill.

We should be worried about the quality of healthcare staff we'll have in a few years time if pay and conditions don't improve.

The average nurse salary is less than the average uk salary

For a job that has significant impact , requires significant skills . Often with irregular working patterns