HEALTH PAY OFFER

UNISON members in the Health Service welcome the news that pay negotiations have concluded and that an offer will be published today.

Thousands of health workers will have pay parity restored on their pay bands and will receive an unconsolidated lump sum for all staff on Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions.

The offer will be backdated to April 2023.  Health workers have had to contend with rising prices and the emergence of a cost-of-living crisis.  The absence of devolved Government and the decision of the Secretary of State to withhold funding deeply frustrated workers.  Six days of strike action and 15 months of working to rule by health workers have finally yielded a result. 

The action of Minister Swann to react swiftly to the crisis and mandate pay negotiations is recognised.

The restoration of pay parity with England on pay bands however still leaves Northern Ireland health workers in third place behind Scotland and Wales.  That gap should be closed and will be a key Trade Union goal in the 2024-2025 pay round.

Responding to the suggestion that nursing staff have been left short this ignores the fact that a covid bonus payment of £500 and a non-consolidated payment in 2021- 2022 gave staff in NI an uplift not available in England.

Six of seven unions at the negotiating table also agreed that the lump sum during a cost of living crisis should be an equal payment for all. We did not support the English model of giving more to the higher paid