The Chief Executives of Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care Trusts have written to Chris Heaton-Harris MP, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to emphasise in the strongest possible terms the need for concrete action on pay awards for their staff.
The letter describes the situation faced by NHS employees in Northern Ireland as a “de facto pay freeze during a cost of living crisis” . They say that the NI Department of Health has been left in an impossible position having once again lost pay parity with England, as it does not have the budget to repeat such an equalisation this year.
Responsibility for health should sit with the assembly in Stormont and the Secretary of State/the UK government does not have any authority to negotiate pay in Northern Ireland. However, Stormont has not sat since February 2022 when it was dissolved following the introduction of the Northern Ireland Protocol. Since then, the May 2022 assembly elections changed the political make-up of the assembly but political parties have still not reached an agreement to return to office. Meanwhile, public sector workers in Northern Ireland, including pharmacists, continue to deliver vital public services such as healthcare.
Una O’Farrell, PDA National Officer for Northern Ireland said, “PDA stands in solidarity with the entire health and social care workforce on this issue. We are pleased to see these employers abandon passivity and act against the ongoing situation that leaves our members in NI, through no fault of their own, at a detriment to their counterparts elsewhere in the UK and Ireland.
Our members carry out their professional responsibilities caring for patients every day, but it is the politicians, that have the responsibility for NHS budgets. Whether it is those elected to govern from Stormont, or those elsewhere, those politicians as a group need to deliver their responsibility to ensure the service is properly resourced to enable sustainable care for the public.
We support the comment from the CEOs that, this cannot be a subsidiary issue to the work being done to restore the NI Assembly, as important as that may be.”
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