East Midlands Ambulance Service staff will strike today in a row over pay and conditions

Tens of thousands of Ambulance staff across England and Wales are walking out today - including those in Lincolnshire and Newark employed by the East Midlands Ambulance Service. The strike will last for 24 hours and is the first of two days it will be taking place in December.

Walking out today in a row over pay is the ambulance workers from the East Midlands Ambulance Service - which covers Lincolnshire and Newark.

With pressures building on the service, it's reported that ambulances are forced to wait hours to handover their patients due to a shortage in capacity in hospitals.

The public is being urged to 'avoid risky behaviour' as ambulance resources will be limited during the walk out.

The strike - will see all 70 ambulance stations in the East Midlands taking part and around 20 to 30 picket lines in the region.

Colin Todd, is the Midlands Regional Organiser for the GMB Union, he says it's something that needs to be done:

"My members don't want to be on strike. They want to be doing what they do, which is being out there, saving lives, looking after people in the community. Let's not forget, we all clapped them on Thursday nights. They'd rather have that, than be stood on a picket line in the cold.

"You only have to look at the the sickness levels at the moment. I mean, the crews are are burnt out. I mean, through the pandemic, they were responding. They didn't have their annual leave. They were working extra shifts, just to look after us all- me included- and this is what we're getting in response to all that hard work.

"They are absolutely shattered, and it's actually really quite tiring if you go and pick up your job at the beginning of the shift, you take them to A&E, and you end up spending 5-6-7 hours at the back of A&E, waiting for to be able to hand over the crew. I've been up to the Lincoln A&E fairly recently and there was 15 ambulances waiting to hand over. That's ridiculous."

Now the “picket line” that will be seen outside stations today is not traditional as the members will not try to stop anyone from attending work, whether they be East Midlands Ambulance Service colleagues or from a shared service. This is because of the line of work.

It is instead being called a peaceful demonstration against the Governments "intransigence" regarding pay and conditions.

Colin details the disruptions one might see:

"I don't think it'll be any worse than it is now. To be perfectly frank, we know particularly Lincolnshire is a big rural area, and it's always a difficult area to cover for the ambulance service. So I don't think it'll be any different, other than the fact, that there will be some people not responding to the the lesser jobs, and that's just the way it is.

"I guess in Lincolnshire, we all know how the roads are, and the travel in between towns, and how long it takes, if you're from the area."

The next date that East Midlands Ambulance Service will be striking is the 28th of December, should negotiations fail.

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