Number of 999 calls appears to drop as thousands of ambulance workers and paramedics strike until midnight | UK News
Calls to 999 appear to have dropped in some parts of England as thousands of ambulance and paramedics went on strike until midnight.
West Midlands Ambulance Trust thanks people for heeding their advice to call only in emergencies as ambulance funds say they receive fewer calls.
The drop in calls comes as health leaders urge people to still call an ambulance if they are in a life-threatening emergency.
It is feared that some people who are in dire need of help will not call 999 during the strike.
Hundreds of members of the army, navy and RAF have been drafted to cover as paramedics, technicians, control room staff and other personnel in the UK are on strike.
All Category 1 (most life-threatening, such as cardiac arrest) calls are answered during the outage, while some ambulance funds have agreed to exemptions with unions for specific incidents in Category 2 (serious conditions, such as stroke or chest pain).
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‘We want to reassure patients’
Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), said: “There could be a number of reasons why 999 calls are dropping – hesitation could be a key factor in action. industry.
“We want to reassure patients and the public that if they need urgent care, A&Es will remain open.”
The Welsh Ambulance Service said demand was “manageable” but any “flow of calls would put significant pressure on our service”.
Members of the armed forces have been drafted to help
Meanwhile, East Midlands Ambulance Service said it was too early to say how the service was coping.
Up to half of its 4,000-plus workforce are GMB members on strike.
South Central Ambulance Service said its main impact from the strikes was on patient transport services in Sussex and Surrey, rather than emergency and urgent care services.
London Ambulance Service declined to comment on how services are operating.
Ambulance workers join strike in London
Thursday and Friday ‘expected to be busy’
Meanwhile, the chief executive officer of a major northern teaching institution told the Health Services Journal (HSJ) that “so far (not) as bad as I’d feared in terms of hospital pressure – on actually, (emergency departments) less”. more pressure than usual.
“We haven’t seen cars/taxi bring patients in in large numbers but the problem is that most of the risk is currently invisible to us because people will stay at home.
“We therefore expect very busy days on Thursday and Friday.”
It came as the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan declared a critical incident and said it was full after facing “unprecedented pressure” within the A&E department.
The strike action came as there was a fierce battle of words between the unions and Health Secretary Steve Barclay, who has said he will not take a pay cut.
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‘I can’t describe how bad it is’ – paramedics
Health minister accused of ‘blatant lying’
Mr Barclay said unions Unite, Unison and GMB had “refused” to work with the government at the national level to come up with a plan to deal with the strikes.
But unions say all those deals were made locally and have been done.
From a fence in Longford, Coventry, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham accused Mr Barclay of a “blatant lie” by saying the ambulance unions had made a “conscious decision”. ” to harm the patient.
Meanwhile, a medical officer in Nottinghamshire said the patient’s life had been in danger for a long time due to NHS problems.
Tom, 33, from East Midlands Ambulance Service, said: “I’ve been looking after elderly patients with hip fractures on the floor for over 20 hours.
“They waited so long that their limbs started to get necrotic (dead tissue), leading to major surgery to amputate the said limbs.”
Sharon Graham (centre) joins ambulance workers on the fence in Coventry
‘Don’t get drunk’
A former Royal Marine who was among the medical staff on strike described spending shifts waiting outside the hospital with patients trapped in the back of ambulances as “dismaying”. when he asks “something needs to be changed”.
Harry Maskers from Cardiff, who works for the Welsh Ambulance Service, says that although he was unable to strike during his military career, he has taken the opportunity to do so now. , with the “initiator” being the government refusing to discuss the matter. pay.
Mr Barclay had previously urged the public to “use their common sense of what operations they do” while ambulance workers are on strike, while NHS England chief medical officer Professor Sir Stephen Powis urged people not to “get drunk blindly”.
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The strike by ambulance and paramedics comes as nurses in Scotland outright reject the latest pay offer from the Scottish government, in a move that could send members of members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) took the first strike action.
Meanwhile, National Freeway workers will go on strike from Thursday until Christmas Day in the latest phase of industrial action by the largest civil service union.
The strike involves members of the Trade and Public Service (PCS) union working as road transport officers and regional operations center operators, in London and east. south of England.
It comes as planned strikes by railroad cleaners in a dispute over wages have been called off.
More than 1,000 cleaners, who are members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport alliance, will participate.
