The North East Ambulance Service has thanked the public for "using 999 wisely" after paramedics went on strike.
There were walkouts across the region's ambulance stations with members of the UNISON, GMB and Unite unions striking on Wednesday. The industrial action was organised in response to the Government's 2022 pay offer which would see workers get a flat increase of £1,400 under the NHS Agenda for Change pay structure.
Under the offer, most ambulance staff get a rise of around 4%, the Department for Health and Social Care says, but trade unions say that is a real terms pay cut, with inflation at 10.7%. Following the action, NEAS has released a statement saying the service received fewer 999 calls.
Stephen Segasby, chief operating officer at NEAS, said: "Yesterday (Wednesday) was an incredibly challenging day for our service. We had a significant number of our teams unavailable due to the industrial action. This followed a peak in pressures earlier in the week when we declared a critical incident.
"We received fewer 999 calls yesterday and deployed all our clinical managers, training team staff, volunteers and private ambulance providers to respond to emergency calls. However, we don’t yet know the full impact of the industrial action on our patients or the wider NHS system, but we thank the public for using 999 wisely, our partners in hospitals and across the NHS for their support to keep our crews on the road and our colleagues for helping to ensure we could reach patients in emergency need of our help."
Mr Segasby further added: "We remain at our highest level of alert status because of the continuing unprecedented pressures impacting our ability to respond to patients, although we are no longer declaring a critical incident. However, many of the actions we put in place at the start of the week will remain in place to focus our resources on those who are most in need. This includes advising some patients to make their own way to hospital when it is safe to do so.
"As we approach an extended Christmas bank holiday, followed by further industrial action, it’s important that we continue to protect our service so that we can reach those in greatest need of our help. We ask that the public continue to consider which is the best service for their needs and only call 999 in a life or limb threatening emergency."
The patient transport service continues to only operate for essential journeys for people needing life-sustaining treatment such as dialysis, chemotherapy, oncology and heart care. This reduction in service will run until Thursday, December 29, to allow NEAS to redeploy crews to support lower acuity emergency care patients as well as hospitals with discharges.
Read Next:
'I know how dedicated you are' - North East public sends messages of support to striking NHS workers
Ambulance service strikes result of 'really dangerous situation' warns County Durham paramedic
North East Ambulance Service declares critical incident due to 'unprecedented pressure'
Paramedics salaries as NHS ambulance workers go on strike over pay in the North East
