South Yorkshire medics begin voting on potentially 'biggest ambulance strike for 30 years'

More than 15,000 ambulance workers across 11 trusts in England and Wales, including Yorkshire Ambulance Service, will be balloted for potential strike action today.

The GMB Union says industrial action is being considered because ‘ambulance workers have been telling the Government for years things are unsafe. No one is listening’.

The union warned thousands more NHS workers will also be balloted across other NHS trusts, with more votes set to follow.

Workers are angry over the Government’s imposed four per cent pay award, which they allege is a ‘massive real terms pay cut’.

They are also concerned about unsafe staffing levels across the ambulance service.

Rachel Harrison, GMB Acting National Secretary, said: “Ambulance workers don’t do this lightly - and this would be the biggest ambulance strike for 30 years.

"But more than ten years of pay cuts, plus the cost-of-living crisis, means workers can’t make ends meet. They are desperate.

"But this is much more about patient safety at least as much about pay. Delays up to 26 hours and 135,000 vacancies across the NHS mean a third of GMB ambulance workers think a delay they’ve been involved with has led to a death.

“Ambulance workers have been telling the Government for years things are unsafe. No one is listening. What else can they do?”

A spokesperson for the Department for Health and Social Care previously said industrial action was a "matter for unions" and added that the government valued the "hard work of NHS staff" and had given more than "one million NHS workers a pay rise of at least £1,400 this year".