{"id":213775,"date":"2025-06-25T18:07:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T18:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/213775\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T18:07:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T18:07:14","slug":"executive-urged-to-back-health-pay-awards-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/213775\/","title":{"rendered":"Executive urged to back health pay awards \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

HEALTH unions have urged the Stormont Executive not to repeat last year\u2019s delays to pay awards, warning it will deepen a workforce crisis. <\/p>\n

Pay review bodies have recommended a 4% uplift for doctors and 3.6% for other health workers across the UK.<\/p>\n

Last month, the Health Minister Mike Nesbitt<\/a> said he approved the pay increase worth around \u00a3200m despite not having the budget for it, expecting it would ultimately be passed to the Executive for approval.<\/p>\n

After health workers had to wait until the end of the last financial year for confirmation they would get pay parity in line with the rest of the UK, Mr Nesbitt had said he was determined this would not happen again for 2025\/26. <\/p>\n

\"Orange<\/a>\"Iris<\/a><\/p>\n

On Wednesday, health unions representing staff on Agenda for Change contracts – which includes nurses, midwives, porters and cleaners \u2013 met with Mr Nesbitt, who outlined his efforts to secure the pay uplift.<\/p>\n

\u201cHealth trade unions are clear that the Executive must support the allocation of funding for a pay uplift,\u201d the unions said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAny delay in providing the funding necessary risks exacerbating difficulties in recruiting and retaining the workforce that services need and damaging workforce morale. <\/p>\n

\u201cA repeat of the significant delays experienced in 2024\/25 in putting pay uplifts in place must be avoided.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"HealthHealth Minister Mike Nesbitt has already approved a pay uplift worth around \u00a3200m for 2025\/26, but this will likely need approval from the Executive. (Brian Lawless\/PA) <\/p>\n

Commenting last month, Mr Nesbitt added: \u201cI want to pay the workers because the workforce keeps the health service running \u2013 you need buildings, you need beds, you need equipment, you need medicine. All that is as nothing if you don\u2019t have the workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am doing what I think is right, which is to honour the pay parity agreements.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week, the BMA\u2019s Northern Ireland Chair Dr Alan Stout also said that \u201cnot one branch of practice\u201d among doctors were happy with the proposed 4% uplift \u2013 with GPs already in dispute, consultants moving towards dispute and resident (formerly known as junior) and SAS (specialist) doctors having \u201cregistered their discontent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need the minister to engage with us on these issues,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HEALTH unions have urged the Stormont Executive not to repeat last year\u2019s delays to pay awards, warning it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[23523,23524,1144,85036,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-213775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-health-and-social-care","9":"tag-mike-nesbitt","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-pay-rises","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114745340414202800","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}