UNISON announces further day of strike action by members in ambulance service

UNISON has announced a further day of strike action by its members in the ambulance service as part of an ongoing dispute with the government over pay.

The union revealed today that its members will walk out on February 10th, following previous strikes on December 21st and January 11th and 23rd. It said the action will involve ambulance workers across five services in England – London, Yorkshire, the South West, the North East and the North West.

UNISON’s head of health Sara Gorton said: “Ministers must stop fobbing the public off with promises of a better NHS, while not lifting a finger to solve the staffing emergency staring them in the face.

“The government must stop playing games. Rishi Sunak wants the public to believe ministers are doing all they can to resolve the dispute. They’re not. There are no pay talks, and the Prime Minister must stop trying to hoodwink the public. It’s time for some honesty. Ministers are doing precisely nothing to end the dispute.

“The government’s tactics seem to be to dig in, wait months for the pay review body report and hope the dispute goes away. It won’t. And in the meantime, staff will carry on quitting, and patients being let down.

“There can be no health service without the staff to run it. Ministers must open proper talks to end the dispute and put in place the urgent retention plan needed to boost pay and staffing across the NHS.”

UNISON has previously coordinated strike action with the other main ambulance unions, Unite and GMB. Unite announced ten further days of walkouts in the coming weeks by its members in the ambulance service, while GMB members are due to take part in four further strikes in February and March.

Talks with Steve Barclay failed to avert strikes earlier this month. Commenting at the time, Gorton said the Health Secretary had made no “tangible concessions” but described the meeting as “very civil”, adding that unions and the government had talked about pay, which was “definitely progress”.

Gorton added: “The Secretary of State is very, very clear that resolving this dispute means not just talking about pay for the next period but actually pay for the current year.” She said Barclay had asked unions to help him make the case to the Treasury for the health sector to get more investment.

Ambulance workers were singled out for criticism by the government in a debate on its minimum service levels bill earlier this month. Grant Shapps accused unions in the sector of having “refused to provide a national safety net” during strike days.

The Business Secretary told MPs: “Although the nurses have very sensibly provided a national level of safe service, unfortunately the same has not happened in the ambulance service.”

Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner demanded that Shapps apologise for how he represented ambulance staff during the debate and argued that workers had been “awfully smeared”.

UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said claims by government ministers that there was insufficient contingency planning around the ambulance strike in December were “fear-mongering” and a “complete and utter fabrication”.