PARAMEDICS, technicians and midwives are planning to take strike action in a row over pay.

North West Ambulance Service staff will walk out on Monday, October 13, following a national ballot of Unison members.

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And NWAS staff will be joined by midwives for the strike which will last for four hours, starting at 7am.

The dispute centres around pay rises, which the government has said will be capped to one per cent for those staff at the top of their nine pay bands.

Under the proposals the rise would be a standalone payment and would not be included in basic pay.

The Royal College of Midwives is staging the first walk-out in its 133-year history after members voted by a margin of more than four to one to strike.

Thousands of other NHS staff at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust will also join the strike.

It will come a day before public service workers in East Lancashire are set to down tools over a pay dispute. GMB, Unison, and Unite members will walk out over the issue, which could see schools and libraries disrupted, and bins left unemptied. The unions, which represent more than half a million workers, said their members had taken a ‘20 per cent real-terms pay cut’ in the past four years.

Care workers, librarians, teaching assistants, school cooks and refuse collectors are all expected to take part in the strike action.

Ray Carrick, regional officer for the GMB Union, said: “We are expecting the results from our strike ballot of ambulance staff sometime today.

“The government has interfered with the work of the independent pay review body who originally said that all staff would be given a one per cent pay rise across the board. The government then stepped in and said that only those at the top of their pay band would get the rise, then said it would be a standalone payment and would not be integrated with people’s basic pay.

“If the changes go through, this will be the case for the next two years and by the time we get to April 2016, when the next rise is due, the basic pay will be exactly the same as April 2013.”

The ambulance service’s director of operations Derek Cartwright said: “The trust is preparing for the national industrial action.

“We are discussing with staff side representatives what the agree-ments will be and what the trust will put in place to ensure there is minimal disruption to the service.

“Our priority is patient care and we know this is also of concern to our staff and the trade unions.

“The trust has robust business continuity and resilience plans we can put in place and the details of these will be communicated to the public as soon as possible.”