People with broken limbs, women in labour and victims of minor road crashes were today warned they will have to get themselves to hospital when a strike brings the London Ambulance Service to its knees.
Emergency crews will walk out for four hours from 7am on Monday but ambulance bosses expect the action - part of a NHS-wide protest on pay - to blight the whole day.
Monday is usually the service’s busiest day and the strike by Unison members comes at a time of dire staff shortages - there are 450 front-line vacancies - and unprecedented 999 demand from the public.
LAS director of operations Jason Killens said a “significant number” of staff were expected to strike. “We have plans in place to ensure we reach the most seriously ill and injured patients as quickly as possible,” he said. “These include all clinical managers working on the front line, the use of more private ambulance crews and support from other emergency services.
“However, people who need an ambulance response, but are not in a life-threatening situation, should expect to wait longer or may not get an ambulance at all.”
NHS advice is for pregnant women to call their midwife in the first instance when they enter labour. An ambulance should only be called on the “rare occasions” if the woman is about to give birth, suffers unexpected bleeding, has severe abdominal pain or the baby’s cord can be seen. “If your waters have broken but there’s no sign of the baby’s head, then it’s not an emergency,” one source said.
Mothers-to-be who do require an ambulance will be taken to their nearest maternity unit, even if it is different to the hospital they had planned for the birth.
Monday’s action is expected to be followed by staff refusing to do extra shifts or overtime until Friday. Mr Killens appealed to Londoners to only call 999 for an ambulance “in a genuine emergency”.
He said: “This is a national NHS dispute over pay and is not specifically related to any issues in London.
“During the strike action we will have paramedics and doctors in our control room who will carry out an enhanced assessment of patients to make sure we target our response to those who need us most.”
Last month new rules were introduced to no longer send ambulances to 3,500 lower priority calls a week to allow the service to focus on reaching the sickest patients within the eight-minute target.
