Ambulance strike set to go ahead as pay talks between government and unions end without agreement – live

Health secretary Steve Barclay calls pay demands ‘unaffordable’ as unions warns strikes will escalate without an improved offer

In his interviews this morning Will Quince, the health minister, said that the military personnel who are helping out when ambulance staff are on strike tomorrow will not be allowed to turn on blue lights when driving ambulances, or drive them through red lights. “They will be there to drive ambulances in a support capacity for individual trusts,” he said.

At the health committee hearing Dr John Martin, president of the College of Paramedics, told MPs that ambulance staff are now having to deal with “a sicker population who are calling us more often” than they were in the past. But, despite that, ambulance staff were seeing fewer patients per shift, he said, because of the delays getting people into hospital because of delayed discharges.