We continue to face significant pressure on both our 999 and 111 services, as we did prior to yesterday’s industrial action.
Although yesterday was a challenging day for the ambulance service, our planning and preparation with NHS partners across Kent, Surrey and Sussex enabled us to ensure that we continued to respond to our most seriously and unwell patients.
We would like to extend our particular thanks to our staff and volunteers for their hard work and commitment, including those colleagues who, whilst participating in the industrial action, continued to respond to patients as part of the arrangements agreed in advance with our GMB colleagues.
We would also like to thank the public who helped us to prioritise our response to those patients who needed us most.
We would ask that the public continue to help us to manage demand on our services in the coming days and weeks by only calling 999 in case of a serious medical emergency.
We will continue to work closely with all our staff and unions ahead of the next planned day of industrial action on Wednesday 28 December.
UPDATE – Please note that industrial action planned for Wednesday 28 December has been postponed until Wednesday 11 January