For a telling prophecy, read this from a Unison Branch Secretary letter in 2014: “The trickle of staff leaving that we saw nine months or so ago has developed into a tidal wave. A tidal wave that, if not stopped, will take our Service down.
“If this trend continues, the reduction of front line staff – currently we have around 300 fewer staff available over the Christmas and New Year period (2014) – will be exacerbated to the point where none of our targets can be met, and lives will be lost….They do not want to work in this atmosphere of crisis, compounded by good people giving up on the Service.
“I do not believe that we are a failing Service, but I do think that we are a falling Service. Falling from one crisis to the next. Falling unrelentingly from the position that we, as the Capital City’s Ambulance Service, should be. And, more worryingly, falling into the inevitable spiral that will, in a short time, turn falling into failing.”
Add to that the fact the LAS is a service which has been failed – failed by a government that did not want the service to succeed, an aim so perverse most would not credit it. That letter is still relevant a year on.
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