Paramedic pay cut is death risk’

SERIOUSLY ill patients face life-threatening delays because skint ambulance bosses won’t pay their paramedics overtime.

Ambulance workers used to get £25 if they had to respond to an emergency during their meal break.

But now South East Coast Ambulance Service SECAmb will pay the extra only for Red 1 calls – where there is a cardiac arrest.

They will no longer pay paramedics to interrupt their breaks for patients with conditions such as strokes and asthma attacks.

A frontline worker said: “Patients are already dying because ambulances are not getting to them on time. This is going to make things even worse. We are overstretched and exhausted.”

Exhausted

SECAmb crews are supposed to reach lifethreatening Red calls within eight minutes. But The Sunday People has seen unpublished figures that show only 54 per cent of crews are achieving this. the national target is 75. Computer glitches have also delayed ambulances.

The trust, serving Kent, Surrey and Sussex, was put in special measures by the Care Quality Commission last September after inspectors rated it “inadequate”.

The GMB’s Paul Maloney called for “a complete clean-out at the top”.

According to a leaked staff memo, the trust is due to end the financial year with a £7.1million black hole. The Patients Association said it was “very concerned”. SECAmb said rising demand, a shortage of paramedics and hospital delays were having a “significant impact on our resource availability”.

SECAmb said a new computer system has been ordered and that staff welfare was a “significant driver” for the decision to stop some meal break interruption payments.