An NHS leader has warned that ambulance response times will be heavily impacted as thousands of 999 call handlers, paramedics, and other staff go on strike.
Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of NHS Providers, said NHS trusts will do everything they can to minimise risks to patients but also highlighted that the health service was already experiencing a challenging period. It comes after Unison announced that thousands of 999 call handlers, ambulance technicians, paramedics, as well as ambulance service staff will go on strike - likely before Christmas.
The union has been involved in a dispute over pay and staff numbers, stressing that services will continue to decline if these are not addressed. It comes after figures revealed that ambulance trusts in England have been repeatedly missing targets for reaching emergency patients.
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The average response time in September for the most urgent incidents was nine minutes and 19 seconds, compared to a target of seven minutes. On average, ambulances took an average of 47 minutes and 59 seconds in September to respond to emergency calls such as epilepsy and strokes - against the backdrop of an 18 minute target.
Ms Cordery told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme “there’s going to be an incredibly testing time ahead this winter” when nurses and ambulance workers go on strike.
She added: “What we can say is that trust leaders up and down the country have tried and tested plans in place to mitigate the risks of these strikes, and they really understand the situation that NHS staff are in, in terms of receiving a below inflation pay award, and the real pressures and stresses that they’ve been working under.
“But what their main focus is at the moment is making sure that they can really run with as safe a service as possible and that’s what they’ve been preparing for.
“I think in terms of the ambulance strike, we know the challenges already of not having enough paramedics, call handlers available, because we’ve seen the challenges to ambulance handover times that we have at the moment in terms of not being able to transfer patients from ambulances into A&E departments and the challenges that brings when they can’t get back out on the road.
“Additional challenges on top of that, I think, will make response times incredibly stretched.
“But ambulance trust leaders will be putting in place as many measures as possible to mitigate the risks of those actions.”
She said “industrial action brings with it its own challenges and its own risks” but “everything will be done to avoid those risks”. She added: “But we know it’s an immensely pressured, it’s an immensely challenging situation at the moment, particularly with strike action coming from all parts of the NHS.”
When asked about the army getting involved to help services, Ms Cordery said it was "probably clear" that any help provided would be "at the margins". She added that "we will really welcome their support but that won’t play a central role in keeping the ambulance service going”.
Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said on Tuesday: “The decision to take action and lose a day’s pay is always a tough call. It’s especially challenging for those whose jobs involve caring and saving lives.
“But thousands of ambulance staff and their NHS colleagues know delays won’t lessen, nor waiting times reduce, until the Government acts on wages. That’s why they’ve taken the difficult decision to strike.
“Patients will always come first and emergency cover will be available during any strike. But unless NHS pay and staffing get fixed, services and care will continue to decline. The public knows health services won’t improve without huge increases in staffing and wants the Government to pay up to save the NHS. It’s high time ministers stopped using the pay review body as cover for their inaction.”
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