NHS strikes: Emergency plan sees GPs called up to cover ambulance workers

GPs are being asked to cover striking ambulance workers under emergency plans designed to keep the NHS running.

Officials are desperately scrambling to find ways to keep the already struggling 999 system afloat on December 21 and 28, when thousands of paramedics, drivers and call handlers will walk out over pay. 

Practices across England have received an ‘urgent request’ from the NHS to allow family doctors to stop work on the days to help ambulance services.

Soldiers, police officers and taxi drivers also face being drafted in.

Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay arrives for a Government’s Cobra emergency committee meeting at the Cabinet Office in London this morning

The ambulance strike will affect emergency services across England and Wales on two days

Woman had to strap her grandfather, 89, to a WOODEN PLANK to get him to hospital after being told ‘no ambulances’ were available 

A woman says she was forced to strap her grandfather to a plank of wood and drive him to hospital in the back of a van as there were no ambulances available after he fell and broke his hip.

Devoted granddaughter Nicole Lea found 89-year-old Melvyn Ryan lying on the floor of his home in Cwmbran, South Wales, early on Friday morning.

The 27-year-old said she had been alerted by a call from the emergency lifeline button round the pensioner’s neck.

After arriving she found her granddad had also suffered a broken shoulder and was bleeding from a cut to his head. 

But the firefighter, who lives in Pontypool, was left aghast after ringing 999 only to be told there were no ambulances available and none would come to help.

Nicole Lea, pictured here with her grandfather Melvyn Ryan, was left aghast after being told no ambulances would come to help him after he fell and broke his hip

Instead the call handler reportedly told Nicole to ring an out-of-hours GP and book a taxi to transport the pensioner to hospital, before hanging up in order to ‘answer other calls’. 

‘I couldn’t really believe what I was being told,’ said Ms Lea, who’s been Melvyn’s principal carer since he lost his wife Maureen to Covid in 2020.

‘I was expecting a long wait for paramedics but never thought I’d literally be told, “We have nothing to send, you’ll have to find alternative transport”. 

Read more: Woman’s fury after having to strap her Army veteran grandfather, 89, to a WOODEN PLANK to get him to hospital with a broken hip after being told there were ‘no ambulances’ available

It comes as a struggling ambulance trust this week begged patients to take their own loved ones to A&E if they can.

All ten of England’s ambulance services are currently operating on their highest level of alert due to overwhelming demand. One senior ambulance boss said: ‘The wheels are falling off now.’ 

Ministers held an emergency Cobra meeting this morning over how to handle the NHS-wide strikes, with nurses, doctors and physiotherapists also taking action on pay.

The request for GPs to join was not penned by the Government, however. 

Instead, it was signed by a senior figure at NHS England responsible for London’s workforce welfare.

The request, seen by GP Online, was made specifically for the capital, but similar letters are thought to have been sent out in regions across England.

It says: ‘I am writing to request clinical staff are released from ICBs to support the London Ambulance Service (LAS) on the Unison strike day of 21 December 2022. 

‘This is an urgent request due to the level of expected strike action by Unison staff.

‘LAS have requested mutual aid on 21 December between the hours of 12pm [and] 12am in order to be able to minimise risk to patient safety on the day of the strike. 

‘LAS are keen to have experienced medics and nurses, who have current urgent and emergency clinical exposure, have knowledge of how to navigate the system and can operate as a senior clinical decision maker.’

The letter said the doctors needed ‘would ideally be from general practice and emergency medicine’.

The NHS said knowledge of the ambulance service is ‘preferred’ because it means doctors would not have to quickly get up to speed with service protocols. 

NHS England previously called for family doctors to step in when ambulance staff went on strike in 2015, when they were tasked with covering for paramedics. 

Some doctors hit out at the request, arguing general practice is already facing ‘overwhelming demand’.

A GP, who didn’t want to be named, said practices are seeing an ‘unsustainable level’ of patients due to the current Strep A outbreak in children. 

It comes after the Police Federation, which represents around 140,000 officers, yesterday confirmed the force could also be called up to man vehicles.

But a spokesperson for the organisation warned ‘police are not ambulance drivers or qualified paramedics’.

National chairman Steve Hartshorn said the request is of ‘grave concern’ as he warned that putting officers in ambulances would mean they are ‘not performing their police duties’.

The staff association said that the ‘thin blue line is already overstretched and under pressure like never before’.

Meanwhile, health minister Will Quince on Monday revealed patients could be taken to hospitals in taxis under Government plans.

He said said cabs 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 one area of the struggling health service ‘unnecessary and unjustified’ and said they were in ‘no one’s best interests’.

The strike next week will be the biggest walk-out for 30 years, with members of Unison, Unite and the GMB all taking action.

GMB members will take part in an additional strike day on Wednesday, December 28.

In other related news…  

Patients needing an ambulance might be taken to hospital by police officers as ministers draw up last-ditch plan to staff ambulances 

Woman’s fury after having to strap her grandfather, 89, to a WOODEN PLANK to get him to hospital after being told there were ‘no ambulances’ available

Ambulance strikes could mean you might be taken to A&E in a TAXI, health minister admits as soldiers are drafted in to drive ambulances to non-emergency call