PATIENT transport bosses have insisted that an upcoming strike by ambulance drivers will not affect service provision.

Coperforma, which has provided hospital transfer services for non-emergency patients since taking over from the NHS in April, insisted this weekend that they would find extra resources from other subcontractors to take up any slack created by the walkout at Docklands Medical Services (DMS).

A spokesman for the GMB union - whose 60 members will down tools on Monday September 5 - said: “They should certainly have the experience to do so, they’ve used every man and his bicycle to deliver the service since they took over.”

Coperforma chief executive Michael Clayton said that after “teething problems” the service was hitting 94 per cent of its targets.

He added: “The employment contract dispute between the management and employees of DMS, one of our contract providers, will not affect the service nor the patient experience in any way.

“In collaboration with the CCG [Clinical Commissioning Group] we have put in place our management and operational plan to mobilise sufficient resources from our other providers to fill any shortfall of vehicles and crews should the need arise.

“Having the capability of responding so quickly and efficiently to any operational threat is one of the essential benefits built into the Coperforma managed ambulance service."

He stressed that his company had paid all contractual obligations to DMS and that the beleaguered firm’s problems were not related to Coperforma.

On Friday, 78 per cent of the members at DMS voted for strike action, following a letter from chief executive Christopher Arnall warning of looming job cuts.

The drivers are almost all former NHS employees whose jobs were formally transferred to another firm - V M Langfords - when the patent transport service was privatised in April.

But when Langfords went bust in July, and DMS offered to take on all their staff and honour their contracts - which were better than existing DMS terms.

However in a letter to staff distributed on Friday, Mr Arnall said that a hoped-for boost in business had not materialised and therefore, he said, "I am not in a position to sustain the current headcount or the previously mentioned terms and conditions."