These are dangerous proposals that could impact on patient safety

The continuing crisis at the Yorkshire ambulance service is at the forefront of what is happening to ambulance services across England – and the losers will be patients and their welfare, as services are made ready for privatisation by the backdoor.

February 4th was the first anniversary of the Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust derecognising Unite as bargaining group for our members after they dared warn about the adverse impact of the five year programme of £46 million of cuts on patient welfare.

Unite members have already taken four days of industrial action, with two five hour strikes due tomorrow and next Monday.

The dispute has been given colourful detail with the trust’s bosses now swanning about in top of the range Mercedes and BMWs, while trying to make our members work excessive shifts. Some may regard the trust’s managers as being out of touch with the public mood and not conforming to the coalition mantra: “We are all in this together”.

The onslaught on paramedics and ambulance staff centres on the imminent introduction of new elongated shift patterns with no consultation. The shift patterns are not family friendly and will lead to an overtired workforce.

We believe the proposals would impact on patient safety as hard working ambulance staff could go more than 10 hours without a meal break, as such breaks would be at the whim of managers. The union wants a protected meal break of 30 minutes after six hours.

So seriously does Unite regard the hardline and intransigent stance of the management, that we have asked the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to mount an independent investigation into who is being ‘straight’ with the Yorkshire public on the facts of the dispute.

Barrie Brown is the national officer for Health at Unite