Ambulance staff will strike on November 28 across Scotland, prompting fears the Army will have to ferry the sick to hospitals.
About 1800 members of the GMB union will walk out from 6am on that date – for the first time in more than three decades. The move comes amid a wave of strikes, with hospital staff, teachers, rail and postal workers also planning winter walkouts.
Now the SNP government and Health Secretary Humza Yousaf have been urged to get round the table with ambulance staff to avert a strike or face a health emergency.
Labour’s health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “Ambulance workers are at the end of their tether and it is not surprising they are considering strike action.
“It is not too late for the SNP government to avert this action by getting back round the negotiating table and delivering a fair pay deal.”
She warned the government would require “robust contingency arrangements” including the possibility of “bringing in Army ambulances” to take the sick to hospital. But she added: “This is not a substitute for trained paramedics and ambulance staff.”
The strike will start on the morning of Monday, November 28, and run until 7.59am the following day. It comes after 89 per cent of GMB members who voted backed industrial action following the most recent pay rise offered of £2205 across the board – for some less than the five per cent originally on the table.
Yesterday, a second health union, Unite, said their 1500 ambulance workers would begin a period of industrial action short of a strike on November 25. It will include an overtime ban.
Now Yousaf has less than a fortnight to make a fresh offer before the expected ambulance service meltdown. The strike will pile pressure on the Scottish Ambulance Service, which is already in crisis with patients waiting in excess of 20 hours for a crew to reach them.
As well as call-outs, patient transport to clinics and appointments will also be hit by the strike – although the union has vowed members will be on hand to attend life-threatening emergencies.
The GMB is seeking urgent meetings with Scottish Ambulance Service bosses to ensure appropriate staffing levels for critical care on the day of the strike.
GMB Scotland Organiser Karen Leonard said: “Staff in the Scottish Ambulance Service have worked throughout the depths of the pandemic on the frontline of our public services, all the while dealing with an understaffing crisis and now a cost-of-living crisis.
"These strikes are a direct response to the Scottish Government who have failed to give key frontline workers the pay rise that they deserve and who have overseen years of managed decline in the health services that so many rely on.
“The workforce is being expected to fill more and more gaps in service provision. With the current offer being well below inflation, that means they’re being expected to do more for less.
“This isn’t sustainable for our members, for those receiving care or for a health service that’s supposed to be fit for the 21st century. You can’t have a world-class health service without recruiting and retaining high-quality staff with the skills to care for people.
“The pandemic just exposed the holes in the health service and the incredible pressures staff are facing. That will get worse if increased investment isn’t made and staff’s wages don’t reflect their value or the work they do.
"Humza Yousaf has been warned of strike action in health services. But since GMB’s members announced their mandate for strike, he has done nothing to prevent it.
“He has failed to come back with the significantly improved offer he promised. He has put off meeting with our members to discuss an offer. He has been totally missing.”
It is understood Yousaf has told the union he is willing to meet but no date or time has been forthcoming. The ambulance staff are the first to announce strike dates within the NHS but the Royal College of Nursing, GMB staff and the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy are also planning walkouts.
Scotland is heading for a winter of discontent, with teachers announcing they will strike four days before the ambulance workers, on November 24.
Postal workers, railway workers and civil servants, including benefits officials and border control, are also planning industrial action after rejecting below-inflation wage offers. Benefits payments, passports and driving tests are all likely to be affected by a civil servant strike.
Scottish Lib-Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “As industrial action goes, this is possibly the most alarming in terms of potential risk to life but who can blame our hard-pressed ambulance staff given the conditions they face and their reasonable pay demands?”
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