Today is 999 Day

Since 2018, 999 Day has been recognised as a day to celebrate our emergency services and thank them for their dedicated service, in much the same way as we hold Armed Foced Day each year.

In the case of both types of services, the fact that we are able to sleep peacefully in our beds at night is precisely because we know that when the worst happens these services are available to come to our aid. While many jobs are hard, the conditions they have to work in regularly place them at risk of life and limb, so having a day to say thank you to the emergency services seems to be the least we can do.

Yet, we shouldn’t just be aiming to do the ‘least’ we can do. As the pandemic demonstrated, it is all well and good applausing the efforts of those in our National Health Service, but when nurses are having to visit foodbanks to maintain their households, something has gone very wrong in our country.

Dedicating your life to protecting the public shouldn’t mean taking a vow of poverty. It’s not just the fact that it is wrong to treat emergency workers in this way, it has a knock-on effect to morale, recruitment and retention and rests at the core of why so many of Britain’s public services are now struggling to keep going.

No doubt, we will get various posts today from the Government and their Conservative MPs about how much they value of work of emergency services workers, packed with dodgy stats. Just remember, it’s actions not words that really matter, for 13 years they have had control over every aspect of our public services, that is what has brought them to this state. Our emergency services, and all those who depend upon them, deserve better.