'Long hours, high stress and broken promises' at heart of latest strike for ambulance staff in region

The ongoing dispute around pay and conditions has seen ambulance workers walk out on another day of industrial action, with GMB and Unite union paramedics, call handlers and other staff all going on strike.

Crews were on hand to head out to Category One call-outs, classed as an immediate response to a life threatening condition, such as cardiac or respiratory arrest, but in the main, ambulances stood still while picket lines were formed outside West Midlands Ambulance Service hubs.

At the Burton Road hub in Dudley, team members were waving union flags and showing off placards as they came together to show solidarity and continue their fight for a fair deal.

There was plenty of support for the striking ambulance workers, with people sounding their car horns as they drove past the hub.

Jason Kirkham has been out on the previous strikes and the 40-year-old, who has 20 years of service, said it was terrible that the Government had allowed the strikes to carry on.

He said: "We've made every opportunity for them to come and talk to us and they are making unfulfilled promises and saying they are talking to us when they are not and, from the little conversations we have had, they have refused to discuss.

"We're just trying to do our best to fight to save the NHS and we need this Government to be honest with the public and explain what they are really doing as they need to be honest and say they're not really prepared for anything.

"For my colleagues and I, December and the first few weeks of January were the worst I've seen in 20 years, as we had calls that waited 24 hours later, people dying because we couldn't get to them and crews outside hospitals for more than 12 hours.

"They need to realise that there's a crisis and lives at stake and they're messing with people's lives unless they are prepared to come forward."

Councillor Adam Aston was on the picket line, having been an ambulance worker for more than 18 years, and the 41-year-old described the last 18 months of his time in the service as "soul destroying".

He said: "I've done nearly two decades and the last 18 months have been the most soul destroying of my ambulance service career, with huge delays in A&E and spending hours out with patients, feeding and watering them and taking them to the toilet, which is not what we should be doing.

"As far as I am aware, no specific offer has been made and I was quite disgusted with the suggestion that we'd allow people to come to harm as I'm still responding to category one calls and am determined that people won't get hurt as a result of what we are doing.

"It's a big decision to go on strike, but it's about time we made a stand and it's not just about pay, it's about the 133,000 vacancies in the NHS and doing what we can to protect the NHS that we love."

Jack Crunden said being at the picket line was an important way to show people what they were asking for and the 29-year-old said it was a shame that it had had to come to another strike.

He said: "It is a real shame that we've had to do this again, but there's got to be a way to get the voices heard and if that's not been done before, then this might be the only way we can be heard.

"In terms of the stress we are under, I think it's more down to the relentlessness of it and the difficulty for patients as they shouldn't be made to be under the conditions we're all working under and it's really difficult.

"The Government need to start listening as there has to be a compromise and while I understand that both sides have to change, but if the underlying departmental side of it isn't together, then no one is going to be able to make a change."

Kate Coates, on the Unite picket line of patient transport service workers at a West Midlands Ambulance Service's (WMAS) depot in Birmingham, felt strikes would last "until the Government decides they're going to make changes".

"Until the Government decide they're going to pay the NHS fairly," she added.

"Listen to the problems that we're having in the NHS; staffing problems and issues in the hospitals.

"People are coming to A&E expecting to get into A&E straight away but they're having to sit on an ambulance and wait.

"Then there's people in hospital corridors, lying there three to four hours, waiting to be seen because there's literally no beds, no staff."