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Tag: strike

  • Tories’ ‘despicable attack’ on striking ambulance workers fails to dent national action

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tories-despicable-attack-striking-ambulance-workers-fails-dent-national-action

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    HEALTH Secretary Steve Barclay was accused of launching a despicable attack on striking ambulance workers today after he claimed that they have made a “conscious choice to inflict harm” on patients.

    Mr Barclay’s inflammatory attack caused fury among union leaders, who accused ministers of causing a year-round mounting death toll of patients through NHS underfunding, understaffing and government failures.

    Figures released today shows a 133 per cent increase this year in patients dying while waiting in ambulances to be transferred into hospital, with the reasons for the delays including overflowing A&E departments, lack of beds and staffing shortages.

    The number of deaths increased from 40 to 93 and the number of patients who suffered “severe harm” due to delays tripled from 51 patients to 154 in a year.

    The figures, obtained by the GMB union using freedom of Information regulations, compared the years 2020-21 with 2021-22 and added to the anger provoked by Mr Barclay’s accusation.

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  • Ambulance strikes show government must come to the table on pay, GMB warns Parliament’s health committee

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/ambulance-strikes-show-government-must-come-table-pay-gmb-warns-parliaments-health-committee

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    “LIFE-and-limb cover” will be provided across the ambulance service in England and Wales today to ensure patients are not put at risk during strikes, a union leader told MPs today.

    GMB national secretary Rachel Harrison said that unions had been working “round the clock” to ensure there were enough strike exemptions to keep critical services running.

    …

    “Life-and-limb cover will be provided,” Ms Harrison told MPs. “The last thing that our members want to do is put patients in harm’s way.

    “We will do everything within our power to ensure that communities are safe during this action.

    “The government has to play their part, they have to come to the table and talk to us.”

    She told MPs that ambulance workers have been forced to take strike action after raising concerns for years about ambulance delays and unsafe conditions for patients.

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  • Government treating NHS staff with contempt, say nurses on picket lines on second national strike day

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/government-treating-nhs-staff-contempt-say-nurses-picket-lines-second-national-strike-day

    NHS sign

    STRIKING nurses outside St Thomas’s hospital in London said today that they felt the government has treated NHS staff with “contempt” and “does not care” about them or their patients.

    Jane, who was on the picket line outside the busy London hospital, condemned ministers for failing to engage in talks with nurses’ union RCN.

    “I just feel like they seem so distant from us, from what we’re going through, that they are contemptuous of us and that they don’t care … and by extension they don’t care about our patients either,” she told the Star.

    The London-based nurse, who has worked in the NHS for three years and did not want to give her surname, said that she had joined the picket because chronic staff shortages mean “we can’t look after our patients safely.”

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  • Jeremy Corbyn clearly illustrates why nurses’ pay demand is affordable

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    Image of Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
    Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

    https://leftfootforward.org/2022/12/jeremy-corbyn-clearly-illustrates-why-nurses-pay-demand-is-affordable/

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    The prime minister Rishi Sunak has argued the RCN’s inflation-busting pay claim is “unaffordable”.

    However, the former leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn has summed up why this is palpably untrue. He tweeted, “The cost of meeting nurses’ demand for an inflation-busting pay rise: £1.6 billion. The cost of Rishi Sunak’s bank tax giveaways: £7.3 billion. If we can afford handouts for the rich, we can afford to meet the basic needs of those who keep this country afloat.”

    While the government is content to give tax breaks and handouts to the mega-rich, they’re leaving the people who keep the NHS running to chose between heating and eating.

  • Ambulance workers in England and Wales to strike on 21 December

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    https://www.theguardi

    Thousands of ambulance workers and other NHS staff are to strike across England and Wales on 21 December in a dispute over pay, unions have announced, as the wave of industrial action planned for the winter builds.

    The GMB, Unison and Unite unions are coordinating industrial action across England and Wales after accusing the government of ignoring pleas for a decent wage rise.

    The strike will happen a day after members of the Royal College of Nursing stage their second walkout, also over pay.

    The GMB said more than 10,000 ambulance workers across nine trusts in England and Wales would strike including the South West, South East Coast, North West, South Central, North East, East Midlands, West Midlands, Welsh and Yorkshire ambulance services.

    Paramedics, emergency care assistants, call handlers and other staff will also walk out on 28 December.

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    The Unite general secretary, Sharon Graham, said: “Make no mistake, we are now in the fight of our lives for the very NHS itself. These strikes are a stark warning – our members are taking a stand to save our NHS from this government.

    “Patients’ lives are already at risk but this government is sitting on the sidelines, dodging its responsibility to sort out the crisis that it has created.

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