Hundreds ambulance workers across the region could go on strike if a vote for industrial action is successful.

The workers, including paramedics and emergency call handlers, from across Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Hampshire could strike over pay.

Staff were handed a four per cent NHS Agenda for Change pay award last month. The imposed award meant most staff received an increase of around £100 per month in their pay packet. 

However, this falls short of the real rate of inflation, RPI, which stands at 12.6 per cent.

In a recent consultative ballot over pay, Unite members employed by the South Central Ambulance Service voted by 82 per cent to strike. 

Nearly all - 98 per cent - said that the pay award announced by the UK government back in July 2022 was unfair. 

Unite regional officer Jesika Parmer said: “The anger amongst our South Central Ambulance Service members at rapidly diminishing living standards, increasingly threadbare services and ever more unsustainable workloads, is such that we are balloting for strike action.

“The government must put forward a better pay deal and one that does not come out of existing, soon to be horrifically squeezed, budgets.”

 The ballot for strike action opens today (October 26) ends on November 30.

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This story was written by Sophie Perry. She joined the team in 2021 as a digital reporter.

You can get in touch with her by emailing: sophie.perry@newsquest.co.uk

Follow her on Twitter @itssophieperry

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