Pay awards for health workers signed off by minister

The health minister has signed off on pay awards of around £200 million for health workers in Northern Ireland, but the money still has to be found to pay them.

The Pay Review Body (PRB) which proposes pay increases for health workers in Northern Ireland, England and Wales has recommended a 3.6 per cent rise for Agenda for Change contract staff for 2025-26.

This includes nurses, health visitors, midwives, ambulance staff, porters and cleaners.

Doctors and dentists have been offered 4% awards, with senior NHS managers being offered 3.25%.

The PRB said the UK Government and the Department of Health Northern Ireland had told them that 2.8% was in budget for a pay award.

But on Thursday, the UK government accepted their recommendations.

The health minister said he wanted to action the pay awards in full as soon as this year's awards were made public.

Mike Nesbitt said it was "not acceptable" last year that health workers had to wait until the "12th and final month of the financial year to get confirmation that they were going get their pay parity recommendation implemented".

He said he was determined it would be the last time.

Nesbitt said that, after signing off on the pay awards, he would be taking it to the permanent secretary, but it would be inevitable he would be told the Department of Health could not afford it.

He said his ministerial direction would likely be to go to the finance minister, "who may choose to implement it or pass it on to the executive for final decision".

"I want to pay the workers because the workforce keeps the health service running.

"You need buildings, you need beds, you need equipment, you need medicine.

"All that is nothing if you don't have the workforce," he said.

Analysis - Jayne McCormack BBC News NI Political Correspondent

So begins another Stormont merry-go-round over money.

Mike Nesbitt has made it clear he doesn't want to have to find this funding in tranches, which if history is anything to go by, could take many months.

Instead he has chosen to issue what's called a ministerial direction - a formal instruction telling his department to proceed with this spending - even though he already knows the money isn't there.

He has effectively thrown the ball into the executive's court to help find the money or risk further angering health workers.

Nesbitt denied he was trying to "spread the blame around", insisting he is doing what he thinks is right, but it's bound to increase tensions around the executive table over tight finances.

Health pay is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland.

In recent years health workers have gone on strike to fight for pay parity with their colleagues in the rest of the UK.

Nesbitt said he was doing what he thinks is right, "which is to honour the pay parity agreements".

He said the health service has a shortfall of more than £600 million because of the £200 million of pressures these pay awards add to the budget.

But he hopes the NI Executive will join him in recognising that those who deliver healthcare care here "deserve the pay that they are recommended by these national bodies".

Dr Alan Stout from the British Medical Association (BMA) said the recommendation from the Doctors' and Dentists' Pay Review body (DDRB) of a 4% pay uplift "does not sufficiently address the years of pay erosion and will be deeply disappointing for doctors right across Northern Ireland".

"While we welcome the news that the minister intends to pay this in full, his comments are some cause for concern in terms of the time it may take to get a final decision on making the award, delaying again the actual uplift for members," he added.