21-12-22, 08:03
|
#25
|
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 47,657
Thanks: 27,646
Thanked 14,458 Times in 10,262 Posts
|
re: Britain on STRIKE: £14ph Junior Doctors' Strike-NHS Braces -Most Disruptive Walkout
Ambulance Strike: NHS MKL Leaders Urge Public to Avoid Risky Activity
Bodies representing NHS care in England also call for Rishi Sunak intervention but PM refuses to budge on pay
BBC News 21 DEC 2022.
NHS leaders have urged the public to avoid risky activity on Wednesday for fear they may be left helpless and unable to reach A&E during the ambulance strike.
The industrial action by staff across England and Wales comes as the ongoing pay dispute between ministers and NHS workers looks poised to descend into an increasingly bitter and disruptive war of attrition that could go on for months.
Health chiefs made the remarkable intervention of asking people to avoid getting drunk during the strike, four days before Christmas, as the potential for disruption in transporting people to hospital is so severe.
The two bodies representing hospitals and other providers of NHS care in England staged an 11th hour bid to head off Wednesday’s strike by appealing directly to Rishi Sunak for an intervention to end the standoff, warning him that otherwise people “will suffer unnecessarily”.
Thousands of patients, including some with serious conditions, will have to make their own way to hospital on Wednesday – often by taxi – because ambulance services are prioritising those with life-threatening conditions, such as cardiac arrest or difficulty breathing.
In a sign of how stretched services will be, the Yorkshire ambulance service has told GPs that they should advise patients to get relatives or carers to drive them to A&E, because “the risks of delayed transfer would outweigh the risks of clinically unsupervised transport”. It comes only a day after nurses staged their second strike action of the month.
In an unusually strongly worded letter, the NHS Confederation and NHS Providers told the prime minister of the “deep worry among NHS leaders about the level of harm and risk that could occur to patients tomorrow and beyond”.
They continued: “We’ve rarely heard such strong and urgent expressions of concern from those running our hospitals, ambulance services and other vital health services.
“The fear of NHS leaders is that the risk to patients is only going to get worse with future strikes planned. That is, unless your government is able to reach agreement with the trade unions to bring a swift end to the dispute.
“We urge you to do all you can to bring about an agreed solution, otherwise more members of the public will suffer unnecessarily,” they added.
Nurses on STRIKE
Government rules out pay negotiations as nurses hold 12-hour strike.
Nurses across the UK strike, as the government rules out re-opening pay negotiations.
|
|
|