Northern Ireland doctors plan strikes as Stormont budget delay blocks pay rise

Northern Ireland resident doctors plan a 24-hour strike on 20 November, with consultants and specialists planning a much-reduced service the following Monday, BBC News NI reported. The announced action is the clearest practical consequence yet of a Stormont budget delay that has prevented an accepted 3.5% pay rise from reaching hospital doctors.

The Northern Ireland Executive is seven months into its financial year without a budget. Public sector managers have kept services running under emergency arrangements, but the absence of a departmental settlement has held up the doctors’ pay award. Doctors elsewhere in the UK have received the additional 3.5% since April, according to the BBC.

Why Northern Ireland doctors have announced action

Clodagh Corrigan of the British Medical Association said the union met Butler two weeks before the BBC report and was told there would be no rise before Christmas, ‘if at all’. ‘I don't know long you'd like us to wait?’ she said. The resident doctors’ walkout is scheduled for 20 November; the reduced service by consultants and specialists is planned for the following Monday.

The Royal College of Nursing has also opened a strike ballot in Northern Ireland over the absence of a pay award. Its Northern Ireland executive director, Professor Rita Devlin, said nursing staff were being forced year after year to fight for an award that colleagues elsewhere in the UK receive as a matter of course. The ballot is a separate step from the doctors’ announced action.

The funding gap facing Stormont

The UK government has offered Northern Ireland an additional £1.5bn over three years, including £525m in the current year. Stormont parties say that is insufficient to produce a workable budget. Finance Minister John O’Dowd told the Assembly that pressures across departments were about £1.6bn this year and that public sector pay alone accounted for roughly £500m. Any settlement, he said, must include uplifts for teachers, nurses and other public sector workers.

Secretary of State Chris Bryant criticised continued overspending and met Stormont ministers virtually on Friday, according to the BBC. The meeting produced no agreement, and further discussions were expected the following week. Bryant said the money available under emergency arrangements would run out in January, making that the absolute deadline for a deal. An earlier agreement would be needed to avert the planned hospital action.