Fuel shortage could affect NHS care in Wales, says union

NHS patients could be affected if nurses and other medical staff are unable to get fuel, a union has warned.

Some nurses had faced aggression when trying to identify themselves as key workers at stations, said Diane Powles, of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).

She called for key workers to be given priority over fuel, and urged people to act responsibly.

A Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) poll showed half of its UK stations "were dry" over the weekend.

The UK environment secretary has said people buying fuel when they do not need it are the cause of queues at petrol stations and empty pumps.

Ms Powles, associate director for nursing policy and practise at RCN Wales, said clinical staff have had to prioritise care, and it would have affected people trying to get to work in the hospitals.

But she said it would have a greater impact on staff working in the communities such as district nurses, health visitors and midwives.

She said: "We have had some stories of nurses having difficulties to access fuel, and that there has been a lot of altercations at the petrol pump as they try to identify themselves as key workers.

"If this continues into the next few days, it will start to have an impact on patient care - getting to work will prove more challenging for community nurses, midwives and for home visits.

"During the pandemic, key workers were given priority status for shopping and ideally they should have this for petrol stations to allow them to be prioritised.

"The public need to have a think: Do you really need to make that journey because that could stop somebody getting a nurse?"

The UK government has announced it plans to introduce temporary work visas for foreign lorry drivers to ease problems.

It is also suspending competition law to allow oil companies to work together to get fuel to forecourts.

Oil 4 Wales director, Colin Owens, said its garage in Maesteg usually sells between 20,000 and 30,000 litres of fuel, but in the last 24 hours alone, has gone through 100,000.

He described the queues as "carnage" and said suppliers are working "flat out" after people have been panic buying fuel "all night".

Mr Owens said the company's oil supplier has "never let us down" and "our tanks are full", adding: "I promise you the garages will balance out again and everyone will be served."

Tim Burgess of rock band The Charlatans asked his 255,000 Twitter followers where his band could find fuel in Cardiff to allow them to continue touring.

He has since tweeted that they had found enough fuel to continue on to Nottingham after Monday night's gig in the Welsh capital.

One dad from Swansea said the shortage was affecting his children's education.

Adam told BBC Radio Wales: "We'd lost the credit card last week, by the time the new one come through at the weekend the panic buying had hit.

"We had no fuel in the car and we actually had to get out of the car and walk home. So that means the kids haven't gone to school.

"We live near Ammanford and my children's school is up in Pontardawe (10.6 miles or 17 km), so it is a commute in itself, you know.

"If someone has fuel in their tank then they should go home. If they haven't got any at all then of course they're gonna need to queue and they're there for their own reasons, but just be respectful of other people."

A petrol station in Gwynedd said it had received calls from people in Birmingham, more than 90 miles away, asking if it had any petrol.

The Mallwyd service station had so many calls from far away that it closed on Sunday to preserve fuel supplies for locals.

Dilys Hughes, who works at the station, said it had been "manic" on Friday, with motorists coming from "everywhere".

She said she was just about to run out of petrol, but there would be no problem if drivers bought fuel as they normally would.

She added: "I might, the way I'm feeling, close today as well."

Andrew Johnson, who runs Dafarn Newydd Store and fuel station in the village of Llanwyddyn, in Powys, has had to ration fuel to just £10 per customer.

"We've probably done as much fuel over the weekend as we have over the last five days," he said.

He told BBC Radio Wales people were calling from up to 24 miles away asking how much fuel the store had left, which he described as "unheard of".

"We've only got 2,000 litre tanks, people have arrived and they've all just said 'we'll take what we're given'."

But he now only has enough fuel to last the store a day-and-a-half and, without a delivery, will have to close.

Lloyd Kidby, director at S&K Haulage based in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, said the business had not been affected by fuel shortages at petrol stations because it bought its own fuel in bulk which is delivered to the depot.

However, a number of their drivers travel to them from places including the Midlands and Cornwall.

He said he was a few drivers short on Monday because those living further than 50 miles away have not been able to put enough petrol in their cars to travel to south Wales to pick up their lorry.

Essentially, he said, it was a problem affecting people getting to work in the first place rather than an issue for the lorries.

On Saturday, UK government ministers announced they are looking to issue about 5,000 temporary visas for foreign lorry drivers to help with the lack of fuel and other products.

But any changes to immigration rules will be short-term, with a cap on the number of workers allowed to enter the UK.

National Farmers Union (NFU) Cymru has written to the prime minister and Wales' secretary of state asking the government to consider getting access to migrant labour.

"If we have got a need in this country and there is an opportunity to fill it by looking to migrant labour from Europe, then I really think we need to drop those barriers," said Abi Reader, a farmer in Wenove, Vale of Glamorgan.

She said she is concerned staff will not have enough fuel to get to work and make deliveries.

"I'm astonished at how much we do rely on it [fuel], we've got various animals in because they're close to calfing, we need to be able to keep their areas clean - that needs machinery - and we are going to need full tanks of fuel everyday for them.

"This is also a significant month for planting, and a lot of our contractors will be relying on full tanks of food to make sure they can get out to the fields and get next years food crop in, so I'm a little bit tense about it."

The transport secretary previously told people to carry on as normal but amid panic buying, Steve Coombe, of PRA, which represent nearly 3,000 independent fuelling stations, said it is illegal to take more than 30 litres of fuel in any container.

In a straw poll of its members, he said retailers had reported between a 350% and 500% uplift in volume due to panic buying over the weekend.

But he said there "is variance" throughout the country, with some deliveries being made with "no issue" and expects to see improvements by later this week.