Ozva AdminHealth service representatives warned of intense demand for emergency services after the one-day strike by paramedics.
A plea to the public to only call ambulances in life-threatening situations during industrial action resulted in a significant drop in demand on Wednesday.
But Saffron Cordery, interim executive director of National Health Service Suppliers said an “increase in demand” was expected in the coming days.
She said: “We know the demand has dropped significantly.” This was partly because the public had “heeded the advice to call an ambulance only if it is an extreme emergency.”
It was also because some people did not seek treatment at all. “And I think that’s what we’re really worried about. It is this invisible risk that exists in communities,” he told Times Radio.
“What we think today, tomorrow, the next few days will actually bring us a huge increase in demand for emergency treatment, people going to A&E, possibly calling ambulances because they are in a significantly deteriorating condition.”
thousands of nurses picketed tuesday while on Wednesday the ambulance staff carried out their biggest strike in 30 years. The stoppages came as unions and ministers remained deadlocked in wage negotiations on Wednesday.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said the NHS “had come through as well as could be expected”.
“We’ve seen a pretty substantial reduction in 999 calls,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today program on Thursday. “The challenge is that the demand doesn’t go away. So I think today we expect more intense demand.
“And that is on top of a health service that is already finding it very difficult to keep up with demand when we have critical incidents in many areas. We heard that yesterday there was more demand in primary care, so more people called 111 and more people were referred to out-of-hospital services.
“So we managed as best we could yesterday. But it’s incredibly important that we recognize that we can’t keep dealing with industrial action on the NHS because every time it happens there are direct consequences, but also all sorts of side effects.”
He added: “We won’t fully know the fallout from yesterday for a couple of days.”
“We will repeat the call to the unions and the government to move away from the rhetoric and move towards negotiation.”
the daily telegraph reported that the health secretary, Steve Barclay, was ready to offer an accelerated payment agreement.
Unions have said they expect NHS workers to be offered a 2% raise next year, according to a letter sent by Barclay to the NHS wage review body. At least 11,509 employees were absent from work throughout England during the Royal College of Nursing strikes on Tuesday, and 13,797 appointments and procedures had to be rescheduled, according to NHS England.
Thousands of ambulance workers took individual action on Wednesday, with members of the military stepping in to take their place. The next ambulance strike is scheduled for December 28.
Workers in several other industries are also required to strike in the run-up to Christmas. On Thursday, Unite members working for Highlands and Islands airports in Scotland, National Highways workers in London and the South East and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) in the North West, Yorkshire and Humber and the north were carrying out strikes. Welsh.
On Friday, the National Highways and DVSA strikes were due to continue, while Royal Mail workers are set to begin a two-day national strike. On Christmas Eve, RMT rail workers are scheduled to strike from 6pm and London bus workers at Abellio.
Ozva Admin
