AMBULANCE staff and paramedics who have had to self-isolate during the pandemic are to get back-payments after being underpaid for a year.

West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) had not been following NHS guidance on what money staff should be getting.

The service has stressed this was not intentional, and they agreed to pay it out as soon as they were told about it.

Throughout the pandemic ambulance staff who had to isolate were paid their basic salary plus unsocial hours payments.

But NHS guidelines said their money should also include their average overtime pay as well.

Now WMAS is calculating those payments and will be backdating them.

Head of Human Resources, Carla Beechey, said: “Since the start of the pandemic, West Midlands Ambulance Service has ensured that members of staff who have been required to self-isolate because of coronavirus have received full sick pay plus any unsociable hours pay enhancements they would have been due had they been at work, during their period of isolation.

“It was recently brought to our attention that colleagues had not been receiving an additional average payment reflective of previous overtime worked for their isolation period (as per the NHS guidelines) the Trust acted swiftly and accordingly to rectify this.

“This was not done intentionally, and the Trust is now working to calculate the average overtime payments owed to staff who have had to self-isolate due to COVID-19.”

The GMB union, which took up the case, said it was important workers were mot ‘punished for self-isolating.’

It meant staff could ‘get on with the job of defeating Covid and saving lives.”