Police will act as scab ambulance drivers this morning — as health workers tell Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt to give his pay freeze the suppository treatment.

Nurses, midwives, radiographers, construction workers and secure psychiatric guards will be among hordes of NHS workers from 11 separate unions joining a four-hour walkout from 7am in England and 8am in the north of Ireland.

And they will be following through with a six-day work-to-rule, shining light on the huge volume of unpaid overtime and additional duties that hero health workers take on.

In London the Metropolitan Police issued a press release boasting that 150 coppers would break the strike as amateur ambulance drivers.

Met Commander Peter Terry said: “We ask for support from the public.”

NHS pay is governed by an independent review body — which is supposed to help workers secure fair rises without having to resort to industrial action. 

But top Tory Mr Hunt rejected even the commission’s measly 1 per cent recommendation — only offering it to people at the top of their pay bands.

South London ambulance workers will be joined on picket lines this morning by TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady. 

“Health workers care passionately about their patients and the quality of service they provide, and so are always reluctant to take action,” she said.

“But the government’s refusal to accept the recommendations of NHS independent pay review body — even though it only called for an affordable, below-inflation pay rise — leaves health workers feeling that they have no other option.

“It’s not too late for the government to change course and award health workers the pay rise the public knows they deserve.”

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis, whose union is the largest in the NHS, said: “The anger is spreading and so is the public support for health workers’ cause. The strength of feeling is far from fading and the dispute far from going away.

“If the Secretary of State seriously thinks staff are the NHS’s best asset then he needs to treat them fairly. We are only asking for decent pay for the hardworking people the government says it cares so much about.”

Devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales have already settled with unions — escalating workers’ animosity to Mr Hunt even further.

GMB national officer Rehana Azam, an organiser of the People’s March for the NHS from Darlington to London, turned the screws on Mr Hunt, whose office was recently found to have taken £3,000 from health privateer Caxton Associates boss Andrew Law in 2012.

“We are open to talks but the Health Secretary still refuses to meet the unions,” she said.

“We’ve managed to get a settlement in Wales in part because the Welsh government was prepared to enter into dialogue. Jeremy Hunt needs to get round the table and make more money available for a settlement.