New offer may end 999 meal breaks deadlock

SCOTTISH Ambulance Service chiefs will make a fresh offer in a bid to settle a dispute over crews responding to emergency calls during their meal breaks.

Unions have been accused of putting lives at risk by rejecting a deal for 250 payments, and compensatory overtime, to paramedics who answer 999s in rest periods.

In October last year, Mandy Mathieson, 33, died of a heart attack in Tomintoul, Moray, after an ambulance technician, on a break at the local depot only 800 yards away, failed to respond to a 999 call.

And in April in Crieff, three-year-old Martyn Gray died when an ambulance was delayed when he became ill at home.

The Scottish Ambulance Service has been locked in talks with all three ambulance unions, Unison, Unite and the GMB over the dispute.

Mick Conroy, Scottish organiser for the GMB, said that management had promised to send written details about "new proposals" to ambulance shop stewards on Monday following yesterday's two-hour negotiations in Edinburgh.