GPs are being asked to cover for striking ambulance workers as part of contingency plans put in place to keep the NHS running.
Officials are desperate for ways to keep the already ailing 999 system running on December 21-28, when thousands of paramedics, drivers and on-call workers walk out for pay.
Practices across England have received an “urgent request” from the NHS to allow GPs to stop working on the days to help emergency services.
Soldiers, police officers and taxi drivers are also called.
General practitioners are the latest professions to be called in under the government’s industrial action contingency plan to cover striking ambulance workers
Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay arrives at the Cabinet Office in London this morning for a meeting of the Government’s Cobra Emergency Committee
The ambulance strike will hit emergency services across England and Wales for two days
The woman had to tie her grandfather (89) to a WOODEN PLATE to take him to hospital after she was told “no ambulances are available”.
A woman says she was forced to tie her grandfather to a wooden board and take him to hospital in the back of a van because ambulances were not available after he fell and broke his hip.
Lovely granddaughter Nicole Lea found 89-year-old Melvyn Ryan on the floor of his home in Cwmbran, South Wales early on Friday morning.
The 27-year-old said she was alerted by a call from the lifeline button around the pensioner’s neck.
Upon arrival, she found her grandfather had also suffered a broken shoulder and was bleeding from a cut to the head.
But the firefighter, who lives in Pontypool, was left stunned after calling 999 only to be told no ambulances were available and no one would come to the rescue.
Nicole Lea, here with her grandfather Melvyn Ryan, was stunned after being told no ambulances would come to help him after he fell and broke his hip
Instead, the switchboard operator allegedly told Nicole to call a GP after hours and book a taxi to take the pensioner to hospital before hanging up to “take other calls”.
“I couldn’t really believe what I was told,” says Ms Lea, who has been Melvyn’s main carer since losing his wife Maureen to Covid in 2020.
“I expected a long wait for the paramedics, but I never thought I would literally be told, ‘We have nothing to send, you need to find alternative transportation.’
Read on: Woman’s anger after she had to tie her grandfather, an 89-year-old army veteran, to a WOODEN ROAD to take him to hospital with a broken hip after being told “no ambulances” were available.
It comes as a struggling ambulance this week asked patients to take their own loved ones to the emergency room if they could.
All ten English Ambulance Services are currently at the highest level of preparation due to the overwhelming demand. A senior medic said, “The wheels are falling off now.”
Ministers held an emergency Cobra meeting this morning to discuss how to deal with the NHS-wide strikes, which have also seen nurses, doctors and physiotherapists strike over pay.
However, the government has not written down the membership requirement for general practitioners.
Instead, it was signed by a senior NHS England figure responsible for the welfare of workers in London.
The request, seen by GP Online, is specifically for the capital but it is believed that similar letters have been sent to regions across England.
It said: “I am writing to request that clinical staff from ICBs be made redundant to assist the London Ambulance Service (LAS) on Unison’s strike day of 21 December 2022.
“This is an urgent request due to the expected strike action by Unison employees.
“The LAS asked for mutual aid on December 21 at 12:00 [and] 12pm to reduce risk to patient safety on the day of the strike.
“LAS wants experienced physicians and nurses who currently have urgent and urgent clinical exposure, know how to navigate the system, and serve as senior clinical decision makers.”
The letter said the doctors needed would “ideally come from general medicine and the emergency room.”
The NHS said knowledge of the ambulance service was “preferred” as doctors did not need to quickly become familiar with service protocols.
NHS England previously urged GPs to step in when paramedics went on strike in 2015 when they were tasked with replacing paramedics.
Some doctors turned down the request, arguing that GP practices were already dealing with “overwhelming demand”.
A GP, who declined to be named, said practices were seeing an “unsustainable number” of patients because of the current Strep A outbreak in children.
This comes after the Police Association, which represents around 140,000 officers, confirmed yesterday that the force can also be used to man vehicles.
However, a spokesperson for the organization warned: “The police are not ambulance drivers or qualified paramedics”.
National leader Steve Hartshorn said the motion was “of serious concern” as he warned that putting officers in ambulances would mean they were “failing to carry out their policing duties”.
The staff committee said the “thin blue line is already stretched and under pressure like never before”.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Will Quince announced on Monday that government plans would allow patients to be taken to hospitals by taxi.
He said taxis could be used for category 3 and 4 calls, which include patients who have fallen or have diarrhoea, on the days of the strike.
Mr Quince called the strikes – just part of the struggling health service – “unnecessary and unjustified” and said they were “in nobody’s interests”.
Next week’s strike will be the biggest strike in 30 years involving all members of Unison, Unite and the GMB.
GMB members will take part in an extra day of strike action on Wednesday 28 December.
In other related news…
Patients needing an ambulance could be taken to hospital by police officers as ministers hammer out final plan for ambulance staff
Woman’s fury after she had to tie her grandfather, 89, to a WOODEN ROAD to take him to hospital after being told “no ambulances” were available
Ambulance strikes could mean being taken to the emergency room in a TAXI, health secretary admits, as soldiers are called upon to drive ambulances to non-emergency calls
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Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
