The ARMY could drive ambulances and fill hospital roles under emergency plans for NHS this winter

Armed forces personnel could be brought in to drive ambulances and take on frontline hospital roles amid fears that thousands of NHS workers are preparing to go out on strike this winter. 

Health and defence officials are drawing up a contingency strategy as ambulance drivers and paramedics vote on whether to join nurses on the picket lines in the coming weeks.

Nurses are set to walk out in December while unions, including Unite, which represents 100,000 NHS workers, are balloting members from across the health service.

In total, more than 850,000 NHS staff members have either been balloted or are expected to be regarding strike action over pay, including nurses, junior doctors, midwives and those working in blood and transplant services.

Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will walk out on December 15 and 20 if a dispute over pay is not resolved

As pressure mounts on the already record backlog in NHS waiting times, the Government could utilise the military aid to the civil authorities protocol (Maca) to keep key services running, the Times has reported.

Maca was used during the coronavirus pandemic to help struggling health staff with vaccines, testing and the delivery of protective equipment.

No formal request for help has been made by the Department of Health and Social Care to the Ministry of Defence.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay said that he ‘deeply regrets’ walkouts amongst nursing staff but added that their demands – a 19 per cent pay rise – are simply ‘not affordable’. 

Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will walk out on December 15 and 20 if the dispute is not resolved.

They have promised to protect emergency and urgent care during the 12-hour strikes. 

However, the strikes are still set to affect around half of hospitals, potentially postponing 30,000 operations and hundreds of thousands of outpatient appointments.

It comes as NHS bosses warned the health service faces ‘its most challenging winter ever’ with the ‘tripledemic’ of flu, Covid and record demand on urgent and emergency services.

Maca was used during the coronavirus pandemic to help struggling health staff with vaccines, testing and the delivery of protective equipment

A Government spokeswoman said: ‘We are working with the NHS on a range of options to manage disruption to health and care services during industrial action.

‘Hospitals will do everything they can to ensure patients and the public are kept safe, however planned appointments may need to be cancelled and emergency care prioritised to those in need of urgent care only.’

Nurses’ strikes next month will be their first UK-wide action, and will see them join transport and postal workers on the picket lines in disputes over pay and conditions. 

Health Secretary Steve Barclay has urged the nursing union to ‘come back to the table’ for talks but he is declining to discuss pay, instead wanting to talk about conditions such as pension arrangements, holidays, rosters and the availability of free coffee.

RCN general secretary Pat Cullen wrote to Mr Barclay telling him it is ‘negotiations or nothing’.

The NHS waiting list for routine operations in August in England breached 7million for the first time ever. This includes almost 390,000 patients who’ve been forced to wait over a year for treatment

The prospect of strikes being called off ahead of Christmas looks unlikely, as Transport Secretary Mark Harper said public sector pay rises in line with soaring inflation are ‘unaffordable’.

The Cabinet minister said there ‘simply isn’t the money’ to meet the demands of workers preparing to take industrial action but hinted at progress in talks over rail strikes.

Mr Harper indicated a change in the mandate for negotiations and said pay rises could come if rail workers accept reforms, after holding ‘positive’ talks with Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union general secretary Mick Lynch.

Mr Harper told Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme: ‘Inflation-matching or inflation-busting pay rises are unaffordable.

All the major health unions have either voted or are set to vote on walkouts, meaning thousands of NHS workers could go on strike in the coming months

‘I think we want to try and give all the workers in the public sector who work very hard decent pay rises, but they can’t be inflation-busting pay rises.

‘There simply isn’t the money to pay for those given the context, we haven’t seen those in the private sector either, the private sector pay rises have generally been settled below the level of inflation, which I accept is difficult for people.’

He told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg that rail bosses ‘will have the ability to reach a deal’, when pressed about whether they have the mandate to properly negotiate with the RMT.

‘But we have to be able to have that reform package negotiated, because it’s only that that throws up the savings,’ Mr Harper said.

‘I do not have a bottomless pit of taxpayers’ money to throw at this problem.’