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THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT

ONFIDENTIAL

Industrial

ction in

the Ambulance Service

revious Reference:

C(89) 32.2

CABINET

LIMITED CIRCULATION ANNEX

CC(89) 33rd Conclusions, Minute 2

A

Thursday 9 November 1989 at 10.30 am

COFY NO

10

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR HEALTH said that in the last few days the industrial action by ambulance workers in London had worsened. Acting in accordance with guidelines on a work-to- rule issue by their Union, members of the National Union of Public Employees NUPE) responding to emergency calls were refusing to date their radios in accordance with arrangements introduced some months previously. The Union had claimed that its members were declining to answer emergency calls, but its hidden purpose to put pressure on the management of the Ambulance Service to inue paying at full rate staff who were refusing to provide poral non-emergency service. Some 90 per cent of the patients day by the Ambulance Service annually were non-emergency cases would be wholly unacceptable for ambulance workers to be à

take industrial action affecting 90 per cent of their passengers without it affecting their pay.

pass

With the failure of normal arrangedents, it had been necessary for the police and voluntary organisations to attempt to provide an accident and emergency service/London. From 11.00 gm the previous evening, their efforts had been supplemented by some 50 military ambulances and their crews These would be able to provide a satisfactory service, although it could not be of the same quality as usual. It was possible that the heightened industrial action could spread to other parts of the country, although so far management decisions to cut the pay of staff not working normally had not generally prompted increased industrial action. Additional armed forces units were 24 hour standby in the South East and 72-hour standby in the rest of the country in case increased action led to the withdrawal of accident and emergency services in other areas.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR HEALTH continued that he

pessimistic about the chances of an early resolution of the dispute. The Union was seeking an increase in pay substantially above the level on offer and arrangements for linking movements

in the pay of ambulance workers to those of other groups

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CONFIDENTIAL

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