Restructuring and the production of occupational stressors in a corporatised ambulance service

The work of ambulance personnel is considered to be a ‘high stress’ occupation by lay and scientific communities alike. Findings from the study at hand support these perceptions but for reasons that are not given primacy in the literature. Restructuring of a UK ambulance service informed by neoliberal ideology is producing new and additional stressors for members and exacerbating the unavoidable stressors of the occupation. Less worker autonomy, indeterminate hours, work intensification and the infinite expansion of shift times are creating stressors that the officers can no longer accommodate. Discourses on the aetiology of occupational stress are played out in the analysis and structural theories were found to be the most apposite.