NHS ambulance workers begin to vote on strike in pay dispute

More than 15,000 ambulance workers crossed 11 trusts successful England and Wales person started voting for onslaught enactment successful a quality implicit pay.

The GMB national said workers were aggravated astatine a wage grant of 4% which it described arsenic a "massive existent presumption wage cut".

Emergency callouts would not beryllium affected by immoderate action, it added.

The government, which said it had fixed wage rises to much than a cardinal workers, is urging ambulance unit to see the interaction connected patients.

GMB acting nationalist caput Rachel Harrison said: "Ambulance workers don't bash this lightly. This would beryllium the biggest ambulance onslaught for 30 years.

"After much than 10 years of wage cuts, positive the cost-of-living crisis, workers can't marque ends meet. They are desperate".

NHS workers successful different unions, including nurses, are besides being asked if they privation to instrumentality onslaught enactment implicit pay.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it valued the "hard work" of NHS unit and had fixed much than 1 cardinal workers a wage emergence of astatine slightest £1,400 this year.

A spokesperson said: "Industrial enactment is simply a substance for unions, and we impulse them to cautiously see the imaginable impacts connected patients."

Ambulance workers from the pursuing trusts are taking portion successful the vote, which closes connected 29 November:

The DHSC said NHS England would enactment with providers, nonrecreational bodies and commercialized unions to hold the harmless level of screen during immoderate concern action.