Anticipated arrangements during national dispute.

Please see below a statement issued by North East Ambulance Service today (28 November 2011).

On Wednesday 30 November, several public sector unions will be taking industrial action over the government’s proposed reform of pensions.

This is a national dispute. It is not a grievance against the North East Ambulance Service, although we expect some of our services to be affected on the day.

We are encouraging our staff to think carefully about the effect on patients of taking strike action on 30 November. We have also discussed this with our local union representatives in Unison and GMB, who have also told us that they do not wish their strike action to compromise emergency ambulance services in the North East.

The unions have told us that they will be urging their members who work on emergency services and transport services for high dependency patients not to go out on strike.
This means that 999 calls and those patients who use ambulance transport because of the high dependency care they require (such as dialysis, cancer care or other serious illness) will receive as near a normal service as possible.

However, if you do not fall into one of the high dependency categories and have an outpatient appointment for Wednesday 30 November and are usually brought in by ambulance, we will not be able to transport you on the national day of strike action.

We realise that this will cause inconvenience and disruption for some patients and we are sorry that we cannot provide a normal patient transport service on the day for all appointments.

However, we believe that this is the most appropriate way to safely deal with all patients on the day and keep our resources free to respond to life-threatening emergencies
High dependency patients will receive ambulance transport on Wednesday, but if you do not come in one of the high dependency categories, our advice is:

1 If you are able to arrange your own transport on 30 November, you should do so.
2 If you cannot arrange alternative transport, you should contact your clinic, hospital or
GP who made your original transport booking to make alternative arrangements.
3 If you believe that you are a high dependency patient and require ambulance transport on
Wednesday 30 November, then please contact us on 0191 215 1515 as soon as possible. This
number is available 8am and 6pm every day.

For more information visit the North East Ambulance Service Website