“If the choice is between staying longer in an A&E department where someone is in a place of safety or answering a call that means a life can be saved, they really are stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
“But is it safe?” Reid clapped back. “It sort of gives the impression that heaps of people are just going to be plopped on A&E waiting room floors and told ‘Right, I need to get onto the next emergency, it’s your problem now’.
“Is that safe? Because if it is safe how come it hasn’t been done up until now? And if it isn’t safe then why are they doing it?”
The Labour MP explained: “No one is going to be plopping anyone on the floor, people cannot provide dignified and safe care anymore which is why they are feeling why they have no choice but to strike.
“You have described the issue perfectly, so for a paramedic to take the choice between staying with a patient in the department and going and collecting someone in a four-hour window, that is a very difficult position to be in.”
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV.
