Health Trade Unions in Northern Ireland have met with Health Minister Mike Nesbitt in our first engagement regarding pay for 2024/25.
We pressed for this engagement as time is ticking on and there is still no clarity or certainty about our pay uplift for AFC staff working in health and social care in NI, an uplift that was due from April 2024. We clearly set out our frustration with the continuing time lag for health pay movement. We continue to be almost a year behind other parts of the UK NHS.
The Minister's response left us in no doubt that there is an ongoing deficit in the funding available for our health service in NI. While he indicated a wish and preference that pay parity should be maintained, it has become exceedingly difficult for his department to offer any assurance on pay. The UK Treasury remains silent on additional funding for 2024, and we have only the words of the new Secretary of State Hilary Benn on record that there will be no new money.
Health Unions stressed to the Minister that this simply will not do. Even if the UK October budget includes additional health funding, the NI executive will be forced to spend 2025 money in 2024 thereby perpetuating the problem. The Trade Unions told the Minister that the entire NI Executive should remember their commitment in “New Decade New approach” that pay parity for health and social care staff would not be broken. We pointed to the fact that health workers are choosing to move elsewhere to work in the NHS, exacerbating our current workforce pressures. The diminishing involvement of prior consultation between departmental officials and the trade unions is further compounding the growing frustration of our members.
The meeting concluded with an agreement that the collective Trade Unions would return to meet the Minister in November after the UK budget is published.