South East Coast Ambulance Service Trust, which runs all emergency and non-emergency ambulance services throughout Kent, Surrey and Sussex is planning cuts of up to £5,000 per annum in the pay of frontline staff. This is the equivalent to 25% cut for all frontline staff. The planned cuts will come from proposals to reduce unsocial hours payments.
 
Directors of the Trust, who are attempting to prepare it for Foundation Trust Status, have stated that the alternatives is either to reduce salaries or make up to 30 staff redundant.
 
GMB represents staff at the Trust including paramedics, technicians, emergency care support staff, managers and call centre staff.
 
Rob Macey, GMB Regional Organiser said: ‘GMB will fight these proposals which will have a devastating affect on employees and their families. GMB members feel they are being treated appallingly by SECAMB, who appear hell bent on making these cuts in order to achieve their Foundation Trust Status.
 
GMB consider that paramedics, technicians and other ambulance workers provide a vitally important service to the public and they should be paid properly for doing so. Morale is now at an all time low and it is a very real fear that patient safety could be put in jeopardy.’
 
Peter Skinner, MEP for the South East added: “To see dedicated ambulance workers being treated in this way is unacceptable.  These people aren’t bureaucratic managers, they are the frontline of our health service; they are the paramedics, technicians and ambulance staff that work hard to save lives.
 
There will be no doubt that these cuts will have a devastating effect on individual workers, but this could also threaten the future quality of ambulance services across the South East.“