Four out of five Britons are worried about the NHS’s ability to provide safe care for patients during strikes by nurses and ambulance workers, a new poll has found.
While around half of those surveyed said they support the planned industrial action, the majority expressed concern about the impact on patient safety.
The Ipsos poll of 1,100 adults found that 80% were very or fairly concerned about the ability of the NHS to provide safe care for people during the nurses’ strike, which began on Thursday.
Around a quarter of hospitals and community teams in England, as well as all trusts in Northern Ireland and all but one health board in Wales, are taking part in the industrial action.
Ministers have said that around 70,000 appointments, procedures and surgeries will be lost in England due to the nurses’ strike, while thousands more are likely to be affected in Northern Ireland and Wales.
Meanwhile, 82% of those questioned in the survey said they are very or fairly concerned about patient safety during the ambulance workers’ industrial action, with the first strike planned for December 21.
The new poll comes as the NHS continues to face high demand and widespread staffing gaps, with health leaders fearing this winter will be the most difficult in the health service’s history.
Ambulances have been struggling to meet response times targets, while new data published on Thursday shows handover delays at hospitals in England have hit a new high.
The NHS England figures show that one in six patients last week waited more than a hour to be passed to A&E teams, with just over one in three having to wait at least 30 minutes.
But the Ipsos survey suggests that, nevertheless, more people are supportive of the industrial action than are opposed to it.
Some 50% of those questioned said they either strongly support or tend to support the industrial action by nurses, while 47% are supportive of the ambulance worker strikes.
This compares with 34% who said they strongly or tend to oppose the nursing strikes and 37% who are against the ambulance workers’ action.
However, support for the nursing strikes has fallen from a previous Ipsos poll from last month, which found that 59% of people surveyed said they strongly supported or tended to support the planned strikes by nurses. Opposition has risen from 24% in the previous poll.
Support was highest among people who voted Labour in the 2019 election, with 75% supporting strikes by nurses and 74% backing action by ambulance workers, while those who voted Conservative were the most likely to oppose the strikes at 54% and 55% respectively.
The latest poll also shows that the proportion of people who believe it is acceptable for healthcare workers to strike for better standards of patient care is 68%, while 61% said it is acceptable in seeking a pay rise.
This is lower than the 74% of Britons who said in November it was acceptable for nurses to strike over patient care standards and 71% who said it was acceptable for them to take industrial action for a pay rise.
