Don't try home births if you're pregnant during ambulance strikes, health sec warns
21 December 2022, 08:04
Health secretary Steve Barclay has laid out how nervous the NHS is about the impact the ambulance strikes will have on patients as he warned expecting mothers not to try a home birth.
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There have been a series of warnings telling the public to avoid doing anything that might end up with a risk of them needing hospital.
Around 25,000 paramedics and ambulance crews are taking part in the first national strike for more than 30 years today.
Ministers warned members of the public not to get involved in any "risky activity" such as needless car journeys and contact sports, especially as health leaders "cannot guarantee patient safety" during the walkouts.
Ambulance workers throughout England and Wales are walking out over a pay dispute, a day after nurses went on strike – leaving the NHS in turmoil.
Various trusts have tried to secure agreements over the amount of ambulance coverage provided.
Category one calls like cardiac arrests are to be covered but services for category two calls like heart attacks may be patchier.
If a woman developed a problem with a home birth on Wednesday, they could be placed into a category three call.
And speaking to LBC's Nick Ferrari at Breakfast, Mr Barclay said: "Category three calls are not covered by the trade union agreements that I've referred to.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay talks to LBC on day of ambulance strike
"That is why many trusts have advised mothers not to have home births, so the advice has been, in terms of those mothers, not to go ahead with home births and to come in to a hospital setting as one of the precautions that is being put in place."
Barts Health NHS Trust has already warned for mothers-to-be to "make plans in advance for getting themselves to hospital" and said: "Our hospitals will effectively be running at the highest alert level for three days either side of the London Ambulance Service action, from Tuesday to Thursday."
Among the most stark warnings was from Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which said: "On the day of the strike, there is no guarantee that an ambulance or paramedic will be able to come to your home in the event of a home birth complication.
"In view of this, we strongly recommend that if you go into labour on the day of the strike that you give birth at the maternity service at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital or West Middlesex University Hospital."
Staff in the health system want a pay rise to reflect their conditions and soaring inflation.
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Sharon Graham, Unite's general secretary, said: "If that is what they think the people should do, that would be 365 days a year.
"There is 130,000 vacancies in the NHS, there's 3,000 vacancies within the ambulance service.
"It's like even in normal play there is strike action happening anyway. We are in a crisis in the NHS… if we do not get round the table and start these negotiations and seriously look at how to retain and recruit staff we have got a very serious situation not for one day but for 365 days a year."
Mr Barclay has resisted calls to pay medics more, saying that to do so would divert money from patients.
Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: "It's important to say that if you have a life-threatening emergency, you must call 999 and the trade unions have made absolutely clear they'll respond to those.
"Also, the kind of higher end of category two calls, the trade unions now have agreed to respond to those, so if you think that you need 999 services, you genuinely need them, then call them out and they will come to you."
