WEST Midlands Ambulance Service says it fully recognises the pressure staff are suffering during the pandemic, and are offering support.

The service was commenting after a recent national survey of staff, by the GMB union, found three out of four were at “breaking point”, suffering low morale, said the crisis was now much worse than the first lockdown last March and were calling for better protective equipment.

Tasha Starkey, clinical team mentor for the ambulance service, wrote on social media: "Back to work tomorrow after five days off.

"Never needed it so much. Honestly counting the shifts down until annual leave.

"Work isn’t a happy or enjoyable place to be at the moment. I think it’s fair to say we’re all struggling at the moment. Please stay home."

A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman said: “As a service we fully recognise the pressure staff are under during the current pandemic, which is why helping them to maintain both their physical and mental health is so important.

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“Our staff have access to a wide range of support mechanisms such as the highly regarded staff advice and liaison service, which provides peer support 24/7. The trust employs two dedicated mental wellbeing practitioners to ensure staff requiring assistance can get it very rapidly. This is in addition to our occupational health provision and private counselling if required

"Hundreds of our staff have also trained as mental health first aiders.

"Each ambulance hub has a ‘quiet room’ and last year we increased the level of management support on all of our hubs.

"With regards PPE, as a service we have gone above and beyond to protect our staff, their families and our patients throughout the pandemic and we will continue to do so. We have never had a shortage of PPE and we have invested heavily in PPE that is more suitable to the environments ambulance clinicians work in. We were the first ambulance service in the country to provide powered respirator hoods for individual staff members.”