NHS staff across Nottinghamshire go on strike over pay

Nurses, paramedics, midwives, porters and office staff will down tools for four hours this morning in the first national walkout over pay for 32 years.

Members of several unions including Unite and Unison will be waving their placards between 7am and 11am.

Employees will then continue industrial action for the following four days by ‘working to rule’, meaning they will not work unpaid overtime and take rest breaks.

Sue Noyes, chief executive of East Midlands Ambulance Service, said: “We recognise the right of our staff to take industrial action in response to this national issue and we respect and understand that their decision to strike is a difficult one to make.

“Union colleagues have confirmed that they will respond to life-threatening emergencies during the four-hour period and I thank them for putting the safety of our most acutely-ill patients first.

“However, the action will affect all non life-threatening emergency calls we receive and it is inevitable that we will face significant pressure both during and after the period of industrial action.

“Wherever possible, we will deal with these non life-threatening calls by providing telephone advice and directing people to the most appropriate NHS service.

“This may include asking people who are not in a life-threatening or serious condition to make their own way to an assessment centre via a friend or family member, taxi or public transport.”

NHS staff are angry the Government has denied them a one per cent pay rise.

Unison’s general secretary Dave Prentis said: “This Government’s treatment of NHS workers has angered them and this anger has now turned into action.

“Refusing to pay them even a paltry one per cent shows what the Government really thinks about its health workers. Inflation has continued to rise since 2011 and the value of NHS pay has fallen by around 12 per cent.

“We know health workers don’t take strike action lightly or often. The last action over pay was 32 years ago.

“But we also know a demoralised and demotivated workforce isn’t good for patients.”

A Government spokesman said: “NHS staff are our greatest asset and we’ve increased the NHS budget to pay for thousands more clinical staff since 2010, including more than 1,700 more midwives.

“We want to protect these increases and cannot afford a pay rise on top of increments - which disproportionately reward the highest earners - without risking frontline jobs.

“We remain keen to meet with the unions to discuss how we can work together to make the NHS pay system fairer.”