Sussex ambulance staff to walk-out as two strike dates announced - 'Demoralised and downtrodden'

The GMB Union has announced that paramedics, emergency care assistants, call handlers and other staff will go on strike twice in the next two weeks.

South East Coast Ambulance Central Service workers will walk out from 6am until 11.59pm next Wednesday (December 21) – and again the following week (Wednesday, December 28), between 12.01am and 11.59pm.

Workers across the ambulance services and some NHS Trusts voted to strike over the Government’s imposed four per cent pay award – described by the GMB as ‘another massive real terms pay cut’.

GMB representatives will now meet with all three trusts ‘to discuss requirements for life and limb cover’.

Rachel Harrison, GMB National Secretary, said: “Ambulance workers – like other NHS workers – are on their knees.

“Demoralised and downtrodden, they’ve faced 12 years of Conservative cuts to the service and their pay packets, fought on the frontline of a global pandemic and now face the worst cost of living crisis in a generation.

“No one in the NHS takes strike action lightly – today shows just how desperate they are.

“This is as much about unsafe staffing levels and patient safety as it is about pay. A third of GMB ambulance workers think delays they’ve been involved with have led to the death of a patient. Something has to change or the service as we know it will collapse.

“GMB calls on the Government to avoid a winter of NHS strikes by negotiating a pay award that these workers deserve.”

The GMB said more than 3,500 ambulance workers, in total, will walk out across the South Coast. South Central Ambulance Service and South West Ambulance Central Service are the other two trusts taking part.

This comes after the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) revealed that no trusts in Sussex will be taking part in strike action this month. NHS strikes are set to take place today (Thursday, December 15) and next Tuesday (December 20).

But – whilst all of the NHS Trusts in Sussex ‘met the legal threshold for mandated action’ – the RCN said no NHS trust in Sussex was on the list of organisations set to strike.

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