Health service campaigner in Shropshire supports NHS workers voting on strike action

Around 3,000 members of Unite in England are being asked if they want to mount a campaign of industrial action.

Ambulance workers in the GMB, as well NHS workers in other unions, including nurses, are currently being balloted for industrial action in the same dispute.

Shropshire health campaigner Gill George, speaking in a personal capacity, said she is "in favour of NHS workers fighting to get a living wage."

She added that she sees the NHS "on the brink" and suffering from a mass exodus of staff who are "voting with their feet and leaving"

"When we have nurses using food banks workers are right to go to a strike ballot."

But she added that she is confident that if the unions vote to strike they will make sure patients are not put at risk.

"Lists are growing because the NHS is underfunded and understaffed," she added. "The NHS is on the brink of falling apart."

Unite said its members, including paramedics and emergency call handlers, are angry over a 4 per cent pay rise awarded by the Government in the summer, describing it as falling "well short" of inflation.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: "For more than a decade, NHS workers' wages have been eroded, even as workloads became increasingly unmanageable. Now with soaring living costs, the situation is critical.

"The impact of this current real terms pay cut will result in the flood of overworked and underpaid workers leaving the NHS becoming a tsunami. Rishi Sunak's Government must put forward a proper pay rise or else the NHS will go from being on its knees to being on life support."

Workers in the West Midlands, North West, Yorkshire, South Central, South East Coast, North East and East Midlands Ambulance Service Trusts are being balloted for strike action.

Workers in the East of England, London and South Western Ambulance Service Trusts will follow.

More than 2,500 NHS workers in Scotland will vote on strike action soon, and any industrial action could be coordinated across the UK.

Unite national officer for health, Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe, said: "New Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his ministers must get a grip of the staffing crisis in the NHS. They must put forward a better pay deal, one that does some not come out of existing, soon to be horrifically squeezed, budgets.

"As well as ambulance workers, we will be balloting other NHS members in strategic locations for strike action in the coming weeks. NHS workers cannot carry on like this. Waiting lists are lengthening and healthcare staff are leaving in alarming numbers. Unite is determined to win a better deal for its members."

West Midlands Ambulance Service declined to comment.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said they value the hard work of NHS staff but urged the unions to consider the impact on patients.

"We value the hard work of NHS staff and are working hard to support them – including by giving over one million NHS workers a pay rise of at least £1,400 this year," said the spokesperson.

“Industrial action is a matter for unions, and we urge them to carefully consider the potential impacts on patients.”

NHS England will work with providers, professional bodies and trade unions to agree the safe level of cover during any industrial action.

The Government says it accepted all three recommendations on pay in full that were made by the pay review body.