Hundreds of ambulance workers from across Berkshire, Bucks and Oxfordshire have pushed back over the four percent pay rise saying that it falls short of the real rate of inflation.

The workers in the South Central Ambulance Service have called for a ballot for strike today (26/10) to determine whether strike action will be taken.

This comes after staff received £100 in their pay packet to compensate for the 12.6 percent inflation rise.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Over more than a decade, NHS workers’ wages have been eroded, even as workloads became increasingly unmanageable. Now with soaring living costs, the situation is critical.

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“The impact of this real terms pay cut will result in the flood of overworked and underpaid workers leaving the NHS becoming a tsunami.

“The government must put forward a proper pay rise or else the NHS will go from being on its knees to being on life support.”

In a recent consultation over pay, 89% of South Central Ambulance Service Unite members voted to strike and nearly all said the previous pay award 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.”