Practices in London are being asked to provide hundreds of clinicians to maintain services during an ambulance strike next week, it has been revealed.

NHS England has asked for more than 300 doctors and nurses to be made available during the strike next Wednesday, the Health Service Journal reported. In a letter to integrated care systems, it asked for “experienced doctors and nurses who have current acute, urgent or emergency clinical exposure” who would operate as clinical decision makers.

30 clinicians would be deployed as part of contingency ambulance crews, providing basic first aid. The ambulance union Unison says that next week’s strike will involve all ambulance service employees, not just emergency response crews. NHS England’s letter says this will include control room and support staff.

The journal quotes an ambulance service source in the south of England saying: “There is a lot of anxiety. Hospitals are really struggling and we were very much helped last time by a 30% reduction in demand.
We had support from the Army and threw everything we could at it. But if demand had been at normal levels, we would have been stuffed.”