Northern Ireland’s health and social care (HSC) services will experience disruption “unlike any previous industrial action” during next week’s public sector strike, the government has warned.
Northern Ireland’s Department of Health issued a statement this week about concerns over the measures scheduled for January 18, saying it was taking all possible steps to reduce the risk.
“Until someone listens to our concerns, we have no choice but to take further action.”
Rita Devlin
But the union said its members had raised concerns about the inability to provide safe medical care “for years” and that patient care was “consistently compromised” by a lack of safe staffing. ing.
Nurses are among those taking part in the mass industrial action and are part of the ongoing fight for pay equality with their UK colleagues.
The day of action is being overseen by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, with at least 13 unions expected to take part, including the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), Unison and the Royal College of Midwives.
This comes after HSC staff do not yet have a salary contract for 2023-24 or an improved offer for 2022-23. This means nurses in Northern Ireland are paid the lowest of all public sector nurses in the UK.
The collapse of the power-sharing agreement in Northern Ireland has hampered progress on an agreement for almost two years.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has been boycotting Stormont since February 2022, contrary to post-Brexit policies affecting Northern Ireland.
Talks were held between the British government and Northern Ireland’s political parties before Christmas to try to find a solution, but no agreement was reached.
Northern Ireland’s Department of Health said in a statement that it was “very concerned” about the potential impact of next week’s industrial action.
“While every effort will be made to reduce the impact on the population, there will be widespread disruption to all aspects of health and social care services,” the report said.
The statement warned that strike action would have a negative impact on a wide range of sectors, including planned and unplanned hospital services, community services and district nursing.
Details of the service interruption will be published on individual HSC Trust websites in the coming days.
A statement said: “The trust will work with trade union representatives to protect emergency services.”
“Nonetheless, we believe that the disruption to services will be on a scale never seen before in industrial action.
“Strike action comes at a time when services are already under sustained and very severe pressure.”
The ministry urged the public to “pay close attention” to the reduction in medical services available on January 18. This includes significant delays and some services being “totally unavailable.”
The document urged people to take “sensible steps” to reduce the likelihood of needing health treatment on the day of the strike, but still called on people to seek emergency hospital treatment if necessary.
Separately, the ministry said it was aware of the “deep frustration” of HSC staff over the continued lack of salary offers.
Without a fully functioning government, Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary at Westminster, was given responsibility for preparing the country’s 2023-24 budget.
As a result of his budget decisions, Northern Ireland’s Department of Health said it would not be able to offer salaries to HSC staff.
It reiterated this in its current statement, saying it was “not yet possible” to make offers to nurses and public sector colleagues.
“The situation is neither sustainable nor defensible and cannot continue indefinitely,” it added.
Responding to the statement, Rita Devlin, director of the Northern Ireland RCN, told Nursing Times that members had raised concerns about the inability to provide safe care “for a number of years”.
She said: “January 18 is an important day, but our members are worried about the impact of a lack of safe staff and the lack of care we can provide every other day of the year.
“We have raised our concerns with the Department of Health, employers and politicians for quite some time as patient care has been consistently breached.”
Mr Devlin said low wages in Northern Ireland made it “extremely difficult to keep nursing staff employed” in HSC services and the RCN “will no longer tolerate this”.
“Simply put, until someone listens to our concerns and, more importantly, does something about it, we are left with no choice but to take further action. No,” she added.