Having just read:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/7629268.stm
I despair of news reporting. The complaint seems to be that the paramedic chose to have his/her statutory lunch break so that an emergency ambulance was short of a crew member.
Personally I would prefer not to have paramedics that are tired or half asleep because they don't take their proper lunch breaks. They have to make life-threatening decisions, and for that they need to have proper rest breaks. The real outrage here is that the ambulance service is not providing sufficient cover for planned lunch breaks. This wasn't someone not turning up for work, it was a PLANNED break, and planned breaks should have planned cover. To not provide planned cover is simple negligence by management, and they should be prosecuted.