The Health Secretary plans to meet with the unions in the face of strikes over whether ambulance service will cover all emergency callouts.
It comes after the unions said they will respond to life-threatening incidents (a category one call) while observing the strike on December 21. The GMB, Unison, and Unite have co-ordinated the industry-wide industrial action in England and Wales after arguing that the government refused to provide a decent pay rise.
Steve Barclay said there will be an official meeting on Thursday to clarify the coverage of category two callouts which include heart attacks, strokes, epilepsy, and burns. However, he noted that the unions have indicated that conditions such as heart attacks will be covered by ambulances.
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He told Times Radio: “We’ve got further talks with the officials tomorrow on what are called the derogations – which bits of the service that they will offer. They’ve said that they will continue to offer life-threatening service, so that’s the cat ones.
“There’s a question in terms of whether they will cover all the cat twos – those are the emergency responses to things like heart attacks and stroke – so it is hugely important that those are also covered.”
He noted that while category three and four calls are "still very important", they may not be covered under the strike, placing "huge pressure". He added: "Of course, we can look at what contingency plans we can put in place, but they’re never going to cover the same amount as having 3,000 ambulances on the day, which is roughly what we have on a typical day.
“There is a risk if we can’t get ambulances to people.”
Mr Barclay said he is “open to talks with the trade unions” and later added that “it’s not just about pay, there’s many issues that affect staff, the quality of the NHS, tech, of staff and staffing levels”. He argued that if everyone in the public sector was given a pay rise in line with inflation, it would cost £28 billion.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The fundamental cause of the crisis in the NHS is massive understaffing, because workers are leaving the NHS in droves due to low pay and impossible workloads.
“Steve Barclay just doesn’t seem to get it. The first stage strategy to tackle the crisis involves creating a decent pay structure by making a decent pay offer. Otherwise the staff exodus continues and the crisis deepens.
“On average every health worker’s real pay is worth some 20% less than it was in 2010. A porter’s pay is down 21% in real value and a nurse’s pay down 26%.
“It seems as one commentator said recently the NHS staff are too important to strike but not important enough to get a decent wage. The health secretary has said his door is open but unless he is going to address pay increases which can begin to halt the staff exodus – and incidentally reduce the £1 billion being spent on agency staff every year- the NHS will continue to collapse.
“He needs to stop saying what he can’t do and start bringing forward real pay solutions.”
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