‘This is as much about patient safety as pay’: NHS faces wave of strikes as more unions vote

A ballot of 15,000 ambulance workers closes on 29 November, with the prospect of the first national ambulance strike since the dispute of 1898/90. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

The NHS faces the threat of coordinated industrial action lasting several months, with results to be announced within days of strike ballots of ambulance crews and about 300,000 health workers.

Junior doctors, paramedics, midwives, porters, cleaners, pharmacy technicians and physiotherapists are being balloted across the NHS. The government now faces the threat of waves of strikes across the public sector, from nurses and firefighters to civil servants and teachers.