Ambulance strike: Sheffield's frontline NHS workers say three-hour wait to get patients into hospital is costing lives

Today, 25,000 NHS workers downed tools in a fight as much for their rights as for the safety of their patients. On the same day, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak used PMQs to call the strikes “terrifying” because Britons were unsure if an ambulance would turn up if they called 999.

Perhaps the PM doesn’t realise, even when stretched to breaking, frontline NHS staff would not put patients at risk like that. Outside Sheffield’s station in Middlewood Road today, seven ambulances sat ready, engines idling, staffed and stocked to respond to an emergency.

Secretary of State for Health Steve Barclay infamously said this week that NHS staff must work harder to “justify” more pay. Of course, if he asked the NHS staff, they would tell him they physically can’t work any harder than they are.

“It’s like trying to put out a house fire with a glass of water,” said paramedic Beth Axe. “All over the country, all hospital staff, are working so hard to keep staff safe. We can’t work any harder.

“We’ve got people dying in the back of ambulances, waiting to be handed over to the hospital. People don’t realise that. Services are so stressed ambulance crews are stuck in hospital car parks, waiting to hand over patients.

“The average wait at Northern General Hospital is two to three hours. That can be patients who need to go to hospital for care. That can be patients who need to be in resuscitation – now.

“Through the day, while waiting to handover patients, you hear Category One calls [heart attacks, life threatening danger] on the radio going uncovered. No one is free to pick them up. You hear the handler say again and again, ‘uncovered Cat One call, can anyone respond, CPR in process, can anyone respond?’ And you can’t do anything. It’s soul destroying.”

Beth says the entire care system is, unequivocally, undeniably, broken. Ambulance crews hand over patients to A&E or triage teams so they can be assessed and given a hospital bed. Except there are no beds in the hospital, so patients can’t be moved on from A&E, so A&E can’t take patients off ambulance crews. It means regular three hour waits for crews with potentially critically-ill patients in their care.

“The maximum I’ve waited is six and a half hours,” said Beth. “That was three weeks ago.

“You can’t lie to your patients either. There’s no point telling them ‘not much longer now’. You have to tell them, it might be a three hour wait. And then, it might be a 10 hour wait to see a doctor.”

To say nothing of the overtime NHS staff are putting in. Ambulance crews, like many public sector healthcare staff, work 12 hour shifts. Even if they are only one minute from signing off, if a call comes in, they respond. And then they are tied in to another up-to-three hour wait to see them off at hospital. Beth says burn out and stress-related illnesses, as well as mental health crises, are rife.

In response, the Government holds talks with union bosses that end in arguments. Monday’s talk was reportedly a scant 45 minute window. The Prime Minister calls the strikes “terrifying” and tables a bill to demand emergency services put on a safe minimum service during strike action. Of course, NHS staff point out that they don’t even have a safe minimum service now – and, today, they are running ambulances from their picket line.

“The strike days have been some of the safest in recent years because no one expects to get an ambulance, so they don’t call one,” said Beth. “It means crew handover times are, briefly, only an hour again.

"There does need to be more education about when to call an ambulance. But it shows how stressed the whole NHS is. People don’t think they’ll be able to get a GP appointment or other care and call an ambulance because they don’t know what else to do.”

Today is the first of two strikes England’s ambulance staff will hold this month. A second is planned on January 18. On NHS picket lines, the mood truly is that they are striking not just for pay – they want the Government to wake up to the fact that patient safety is at risk every day under current conditions.

“I have been in the service for 17 years and this is the worst it’s ever been,” said Unison’s South Area secretary Tracy Leatherland.

“It’s not just about pay. It’s about service in the NHS as a whole. We’re seriously underfunded, we cannot retain staff, and we’re fighting to keep patients safe.

“It’s not seen as a job for life anymore – paramedics join for a few years then quit from burnout. What we want is for the Government to sit around the table and talk about everything – not just pay. But I feel the attitude we get is they don’t care. They are making it out to be about pay and that staff are being greedy.

“No one joins this job to go on strike and not care for people. But people don’t realise, we aren’t able to care for people now, because the system is so stressed crews are waiting two to three hours per patient.”

Today, as The Star spoke with the staff at Middlewood Ambulance Station, dozens of residents sounded their horns in support as they drove past. The paramedics hope residents will understand they are striking as a last resort. It’s up to union bosses and the Government to break the deadlock over pay and conditions – but the warning from the picket lines is there is a long way to go to repair the NHS.