On February 10, 2023, in London, United Kingdom, British ambulance drivers and emergency medical staff join the wave of strikes in the UK for the fourth time.
Next month, a number of healthcare professionals, including ambulance drivers, will strike once more over salary.
The largest trade union in the UK, Unison, has declared that on March 8 in England, its NH members will join picket lines.
‘We want to see the colour of their money!’
McAnea’s remark appeared to reference the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), the nurses union, which agreed to call off job action after the government agreed to long-sought pay talks.
Unison said healthcare assistants, cleaners, porters and ambulance staff will be involved in the March 8 strike.
Workers at NHS Blood and Transplant, Great Ormond Street Hospital, the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool Women’s Hospital and the Bridgewater Community Trust will walk out for the first time.
Four other services in England – South Central, East of England, West Midlands and East Midlands – will also stage stoppages following a vote last week.
London, Yorkshire, the North East, North West and South West services – which have already taken job action four times – will strike once again on March 8.
McAnea added in a statement: ‘Unfortunately for patients, staff and anyone that cares about the NHS, the strikes go on.
‘There can be no pick-and-mix solution. NHS workers in five unions are involved in strike action over pay, staffing and patient care.
‘Choosing to speak to one union and not others won’t stop the strikes and could make a bad situation much worse.’
McAnea said the government refusing talks with Unison will ‘condemn patients to many more months of disruption’.
‘Governments elsewhere in the UK know how pay deals can be done,’ she added.
‘Rishi Sunak must copy their example, hold proper pay talks and allow everyone to get back to work.”
Ambulance workers have raised alarms about record delays for patients seeking emergency A, such as hour-long ambulance arrival and drop-off times.
Unite said yesterday Welsh ambulance staff will walk out for two more days in March with ‘no end in sight’ to the dispute.
The stoppages, set for March 6-10, come on top of emergency services strikes up and down Britain every day this week.
Unions representing ambulance workers rejected the government’s last pay offer of 3% for 2022-23, which was on top of the average 4.5% increase paid to health workers last autumn
But unions said this figure barely keeps up with double-digit inflation and amounts to a cut in real terms.
Inflation has soared to as much as 11.1% in recent months, driving the cost of food, fuel and more to astronomical levels.
Several other unions representing healthcare workers have been locking arms with them, who see the issues facing emergency services as worsened by years-long problems within the NHS.
Up to 15,000 Unison ambulance workers went on strike last month and were joined by 5,000 of their NHS colleagues at two Liverpool hospital trusts.
Health workers such as junior doctors and nurses say the high level of staff turnaround has led to backlogs, long waits and burnt-out staff.
Ever-rising demand hasn’t helped, health unions say, neither has years of austerity measures by Conservative governments gutting public services.