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Health workers in north of Ireland set for more strikes after ‘insulting’ offer rejected

HEALTH WORKERS will continue with planned industrial action in the north of Ireland on Tuesday and Wednesday, unions have warned, after members rejected a new pay offer last week.

Members of Unison and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) will carry on with their action, describing the offer from the British Department of Health as “insulting.”

Northern Ireland’s Health & Social Care Board told patients to expect more appointments and services to be cancelled. Spokesman Richard Pengelly said he was “disappointed” that unions did not accept the offer, in a package said to involve an additional £28 million.

But Unison hit out at a statement from the board claiming there would be “no further pay offers” this year. Spokeswoman Stephanie Greenwood said she hoped it had been made “in the heat of the moment.”

Staff say they have been forced into taking action — the Royal College of Surgeons warned last month that the NHS in the six counties was “on the brink of collapse.”

While pay remains an issue for health workers, many are concerned over safe staffing levels. The statistics make for grim reading.

There are now 2,484 registered nurse vacancies and 454 nursing support worker vacancies across the country. In September the 12-hour A&E waiting time target was missed 3,482 times. An incredible 306,000 people — one in six people in Northern Ireland — were on hospital waiting lists for their first appointment.

On Friday the RCN took part in its first national strike in 103 years and nurses will take action short of a strike tomorrow and Wednesday as health unions gear up for a full walkout on December 18.

The Department of Health’s proposal for a 3.1 per cent increase for staff on Agenda for Change contracts was rejected.

RCN Northern Ireland director Pat Cullen said: “The last thing any nurse wants is to have to take industrial action. However, as we have stated on many occasions in recent weeks and months, nurses now feel that we have no choice.

“With around 2,800 vacant nursing posts in the system, record levels of expenditure on agency staff to try to plug the gaps and nurses’ pay continuing to fall further and further behind the rest of the UK, nurses have had enough. The RCN has been raising these issues for many years but nobody in the corridors of power has listened.”

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