A DOZEN paramedics have been suspended from their jobs without pay, in a move that has provoked fury among union leaders.

Ambulance chiefs have been accused of being high-handed - and even of putting lives at risk.

The staff have been put on ten-day suspensions after failing to renew their registrations with the Health Professions Council (HPC), the statutory body to which all paramedics must belong.

They work for the Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service (Tenyas), which says it did all it could to help but eventually had no choice but to suspend them.

Tenyas says the situation began with an administrative problem with the HPC, which the latter insists had nothing to with the suspensions.

Two of the suspended paramedics are members of the GMB union and branch secretary John Durkin said the move had deprived people of professional health cover.

"This could put lives at risk," he said.

Unison branch secretary Harry Brown said ambulance bosses had acted with high-handedness, although he laid the blame with the HPC.

"We have had individual cases of people failing to renew before, when they have been away on holiday or something, but never this many," he said.

The registrations should have been done by the end of August, but by early September more than 50 of the Tenyas paramedics had failed to do so, said director of patient services John Darley.

He said the problem was reflected nationally and the HPC had acknowledged there had been an administration problem on its part.

Mr Darley said that once that problem had been addressed, some paramedics were still unregistered.

"These unregistered paramedics had five weeks in which to register and during that time they received our full support," he said.

"As a result, and again in full consultation with Unison, we had no alternative but to suspend them from duty pending a further investigation into their circumstances."

Each case is being reviewed and if the paramedics concerned can show the non-renewal was not their fault, they will not lose out financially.

Mr Darley said: "We are maintaining our A&E service and doing everything in the best interests of patient care while recognising the vital importance of this registration issue."

A spokesman for the HPC said its administration error had involved sending out reminder letters two days late, and the deadline had been extended by seven days as a result. Following that, it had processed everything on time, he said.