Paramedics, emergency care assistants, call handlers and other staff will strike on December 21 and 28, the union has announced. Workers across the ambulance services and some NHS trusts have voted to reject the Government’s four per cent pay increase. The GMB said the raise is “another massive real terms pay cut”.

Rachel Harrison, GMB National Secretary, said: “Ambulance workers – like other NHS workers – are on their knees. Demoralised and downtrodden, they’ve faced twelve years Conservative cuts to the service and their pay packets, fought on the frontline of a global pandemic and now face the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. No one in the NHS takes strike action lightly – today shows just how desperate they are.

“This is as much about unsafe staffing levels and patient safety as it is about pay. A third of GMB ambulance workers think delays they’ve been involved with have led to the death of a patient. Something has to change or the service as we know it will collapse. GMB calls on the Government to avoid a Winter of NHS strikes by negotiating a pay award that these workers deserve.”

GMB representatives will meet with Yorkshire Ambulance Service to discuss ‘life and limb' cover during the period of the strikes, when staff will walk out between 12.01am and 11.59pm on both dates. The GMB, Unison and Unite are co-ordinating industrial action across England and Wales after accusing the Government of ignoring pleas for a decent wage rise.

Yorkshire ambulance strike: GMB announces dates when almost 1,500 workers will strike