STRIKING ambulance staff set up a picket line outside their ambulance station in Brewery Road on Wednesday as nationally more than 25,000 workers walked out over pay and conditions.

Paramedics who stood on the picket line missed a day’s pay and stood in the rain for up to 12 hours to fight for better pay and the right to offer patients an improved services.

It follows a similar strike in December after ambulance staff were offered a 72p an hour pay rise in the face of a 10 per cent rise in the cost of living. Workers are also frustrated at failing to meet the seven-minute target to arrive on the scene of a critical and life-threatening incident.

In December the average response time was 10 minutes and 57 seconds. New NHS England figures show average ambulance response times in England last month were the longest on record.

Paul Holborow of Islington Strike Solidarity Committee said: “They’re striking first of all to catch up in their pay, which has been eroded over the last 10 years of austerity, but secondly and as importantly, ambulance workers are saying up and down the country they’re striking to save the NHS, because the ambulance service is understaffed and underfunded and it is totally unacceptable for the government to blame striking ambulance men and women for worsening waiting times during the strike when everybody knows this happens every day of the week.”

The picket line was supported by Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn and Labour councillors including Ruth Hayes.

Talks between unions Unison and GMB and the health secretary Steve Barclay (pictured) failed on Monday.

Unions said they planned to meet members next week to discuss further strikes, with one set for Monday January 23.