It’s like walking down a tunnel and there’s no light at the end

It is common these days for paramedic Simon Day to pick a patient up at the start of a 12-hour shift and spend that whole shift, and maybe up to three hours more, sitting with them in a queue outside a full-to-capacity A&E department.

In that time his colleague and he will see the calls stack up they cannot answer.

This can be up to 100 on good days, over 300 on bad days.

He says the frustration, stress, and guilt this is causing ambulance staff is damaging their mental health, not to mention putting patients at risk.

“It’s like walking down a tunnel and there’s no light at the end of it,” he says.

Ambulance crews are for the first time having to nurse. “Now we are

getting them to hospital and having to toilet patients and feed patients. Paramedics, technicians and ambulance service staff are not trained to do it,” he explains. And against this scenario, in which he constantly fears he will lose a patient, he sees the cost of living crisis bite those colleagues who are in lower salary bands earning in the teens and twenties.

Simon, 56, branch secretary of the GMB union ambulance branch in the Midlands region, says colleagues are asking for financial support.

He explains he and others will strike because “we have had 12 years of real-terms pay cuts” and so many of the staff he represents are on minimum wage. But also because staff shortfalls are impacting patient safety — he sees that firsthand each day.