Hundreds of NHS workers will walk out next week in a bitter row over privatisation.
Workers at NHS Logistics, which supplies NHS goods and equipment, will stage the first of two 24-hour strikes starting at 10pm next Thursday following the government decision to transfer their jobs to German-owned parcel delivery giant DHL as part of a £3.7bn contract.
Further industrial action will follow the two strikes in what is set to be the biggest outbreak of unrest in the health service for almost 20 years.
NHS Logistics employs 1,400 workers, who deliver goods to hospitals and GP surgeries across England.
Just under 1,000 Unison members voted three to one in favour of the strike.
Workers who will walk out are based at distribution centres in Alfreton, Runcorn, Normanton, Maidstone and Bury St Edmunds.
Unison said it would draw up emergency plans, but warned that hospitals across England will quickly run out of bulky items such as bedpans and will also run short of hand gel, latex gloves and food.
The Unison general secretary, Dave Prentis, gave notice of the ballot result earlier this week at the TUC conference in Brighton, where he told delegates that the decision to outsource the service was evidence of "market madness" and "privatisation driven by dogma, delivered by diktat".
Mr Prentis said today: "These are not troublemakers, not hard-liners but workers who care deeply about the NHS.
"They are hardworking public service workers who are now making a stand to protect our NHS. They will have the full support of Unison and the resources we can make available.
"NHS Logistics is an award-winning service and it makes no sense to sell it off to DHL."
This week, the TUC conference heard public sector trade union leaders line up to condemn the government's increasing reliance on the private sector to deliver public services.
The conference backed a motion to support any public sector union taking industrial action to defend jobs and services.
