Explainer-in-brief: Ambulance strikes add further pressure on a strained system
Amidst the chaos of the strikes rocking Britain, ambulance workers will join the walkouts this week, in what is expected to be the most disruptive wave of strikes so far. They will take place this Wednesday and again on the 28th of December.
Health bosses have defined these strikes as the biggest danger to patients. The military has been drafted in to try to mitigate disruption, but the impact is still likely to be severe, as paramedics, call handlers and emergency care assistants have a hard-to-replace, very specific skill set.
The ambulance strikes follow the nurses’ walkouts that took place last week. They compound an increasingly complex conundrum for the government: how to deal with wide-spread industrial action.
The public tends to be supportive of NHS strikes – although the support for the nurses is starting to falter. At the same time, these strikes do affect daily NHS care and are, politically, a much more urgent matter than others. Rishi Sunak and his Cabinet have immense pressure on them to show that they’re trying to do something constructive to reach a solution, instead of just sitting back and watching as chaos unfolds.