Northern Ireland nurses to join ballot for strike action

Nursing staff in Northern Ireland are to join colleagues across the UK in balloting for strike action.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) had previously announced that an industrial action strike ballot across England, Wales and Scotland will open on September 15.

The decision has been taken following an emergency council meeting for members in Northern Ireland to join the ballot which could lead to a complete withdrawal of labour.

Nurses in the rest of the UK have never gone on strike before, but their counterparts in Northern Ireland took industrial action in 2019.

Responding to the move, Stormont Health Minister Robin Swann said strike action was not inevitable.

However, he insisted the level of funding required to meet pay demands of health workers would require the Government to make more available to administrations across the UK.

The RCN council is calling for a pay rise for nursing staff of 5% above inflation.

Fiona Devlin, chair of the RCN Northern Ireland Board, said: “After years of underpayment and staff shortages, the fight for fair pay continues.

“Nursing staff in Northern Ireland do not even know if they will receive a pay award this year.

“However, we are acutely aware that the pay award for colleagues in England and Wales does nothing to help with the spiralling costs of living and will do nothing to recruit or retain more nursing staff.

“A below inflation pay award does not recognise the skills and responsibility of the job we do and, more importantly, will not improve patient safety. We are appealing to members to vote for change – enough is enough.”

Rita Devlin, director of the RCN in Northern Ireland, said: “It is quite unbelievable that three years after we took industrial action for the first time in the RCN’s history, that we’re asking members if they will take strike action again. This has not been an easy decision.

“Serious shortages of nursing staff are putting patient safety at risk every single day.

“Governments across the UK have failed to take action on this issue and in Northern Ireland, with no functioning Northern Ireland Executive to appeal to, nursing staff have not received a pay offer at all.

“This situation has become intolerable. We took strike action before primarily due to safe staffing and the impact of low pay on retention of nursing staff.

“We’re now in a worse position than ever with unsafe staffing levels and a range of other issues including the high number of nursing staff who are leaving the profession. Unfortunately, we’ve been left with no other choice than to ask our members to vote on industrial action.”

The RCN ballot on industrial action and strike action will take place from September 15 until October 13 by post.

The move comes as Mr Swann warned Stormont colleagues he will need to overspend by £400 million to continue delivering effective services.

Members of the RCN joined with other trade unions for a lunchtime protest over pay rates outside Belfast hospitals on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Mr Swann said he did not currently have the money to implement the recommendations of an independent panel on health workers’ pay, never mind the additional uplift the unions were asking for.

Stormont is without an agreed budget for 2022/23 due the current powersharing impasse.

Mr Swann said even if a proposed draft budget had been struck before the executive collapsed in February there would still not have been enough to cover the latest pay demands.

“The solution to the industrial action that has been proposed has to be a UK-wide approach,” he said.

“I have made it very clear that the current financial package that I have doesn’t even meet the independent body’s recommendations, never mind the additional asks we’re seeing from our health service.

“But I’ve always been clear in my support for our health workers in regards to what I’ve been able to do within my ministerial portfolio, but also within the budgetary availability I’ve had.”

He added: “When we do look at the quantum and the size of the asks that are coming from our health unions it is not something that I can meet currently within my budget, or I think within Stormont’s budget, even as was proposed prior to the elections.”