GPs have been urged to only call 999 for life-threatening emergencies on the days when ambulance staff are on strike.
NHS England has also asked practice teams to reassure patients that GP services are not impacted by upcoming industrial action.
Ambulance staff across most of England and Wales will go on strike on 21 and 28 December.
In a bulletin sent to GPs from primary care leads, NHS England said: ‘On days where there is industrial action, patients (and GP practice staff calling on their behalf) should only call 999 if it is a life threatening medical or mental health emergency.’
It is expected that nine ambulance trusts will be impacted by industrial action this week and eight trusts affected next week.
‘We are conscious that patients may be concerned about how the strike will affect them and general practice teams may see additional demands into services as a result of strike action.
‘Please reassure patients that GP services are not impacted and that they should attend their appointments with the GP team unless contacted and told otherwise,’ the bulletin said.
Meanwhile, a letter to GPs from the North West Ambulance Service, seen by Pulse, said ‘immediate self-conveyance or taxi conveyance will be advised’ in ‘all other circumstances’ except ‘confirmed cardiac arrest and immediate threats to life’.
It follows a letter sent out from NHS England through ICBs in London asking that GPs and other primary care clinical staff be released to support the ambulance service during the strikes.
The ‘urgent request’ sent to GP practices, PCN leads and GP Federations, asked that GPs as well as advanced paramedics or others with urgent care experience cover two shifts on the day of the planned industrial action.
In response the BMA advised GPs not to cover for striking ambulance workers because practice staff would risk putting patients at harm, increasing waiting times and impact the wellbeing of already overstretched general practice teams.
NHS England has said the impact of the strikes on services would vary across different ambulance trusts but ‘extensive disruption’ is expected.
Hospitals, mental health and community trusts have been asked to discharge as many patients as possible ahead of the industrial action to free up beds. Some ambulance services are expected to receive help from the military.
so, they waste GP and their own time telling us to do as normal?
GPs only call 999 for emergencies anyway.
Or didn’t NHSE know that?
we kow our job, and we know what is safe. anyway, we can’t get ambulances on non-strike days. they are mostly parked up outside A&E.
How insulting… there is no respect for our professionalism here…
It’s like the letters saying ‘please don’t send patients into hospital unless they need admission’…
Do they think we do these things for a laugh?
thankyou for this guidance !
like most other gp’s i have phoned a 999 ambulance anytime i wanted a cup of tea or a kebab delivered !
what do they think we do all day ?
Its reassuring that we have highly paid managers with all the talents, in all the meetings, using their expensive time wisely getting their heads around these difficult concepts and offering advice down the food chain to plebs like me – advice that is not at all likely to be filed under b for “bleedin’ obvious”.
We are blessed. We are saved. Praise be.
Shows how out of touch they are. Really insulting and most of all pretentious.
Pretend like they are actually giving useful advice or are actually more knowledgeable than the GP. We hardly ever call 999 for years.
But the public can freely call 999 for not a life threatening non emergency.
Sold.
Great.
So I can infer from this that I can go back to ringing 999 for all my non urgent hospital referrals then?
This is insulting.
GPs use 999 correctly – you dimwit. Public, use it at free will. It’s all yours. Banter.
No need for this uproar.
Sepsis will not be urgent enough to get an ambulance transport from GP surgery or care homes on the strike days.
Anaphylaxis, cardiac arrests or immediate threats to life will be dealt with same way.
Fully support paramedics.
Yet another example of how out of touch with reality are NHS managers.
Today I heard a paramedic saying on R4 that he was frequently being sent to attend events that he had no training or expertise manage. Maybe it would be useful if the managers in charge of triage in the call centre asked his advice and trained their phone operators to be more effective.
Ditto for most other aspects of NHS services. When do NHSE managers ask frontline staff – and even rarely when do they listen and understand?
Too many failures prompted to another senior job. No wonder it’s broken.
How much longer do we have to listen to criticism of junior doctors leaving full time NHS jobs to work as part time locums and earn several times as much.
It’s not all about pay but a lot to do with the blame and bullying culture, failure of managers to admit system failures and accept responsibility for putting them right.
Restoring free parking, free food when on duty, free crèche and childcare for staff while working ( Cicely Saunders did this at St Christophers Hospice in the 1960’s), free and adequate accommodation for on call staff, return of nursing bursaries (or just paying staff who carry a substantial service load during training).
The NHS probably has enough money if it was effectively managed and waste was properly controlled.
I could go on but I hope this is enough to make the point.
Just received a Christmas gift from my department as a thank you token. Its an Amazon £10 voucher.
I am still chasing my manager to sign off my excess mileage from October.
My friend who works for a mobile network just received £150 amazon voucher. He also has private health insurance and does not have to pay anything to park at work.
Something seriously needs to change.