Nurses' strike: Services to be affected as 12-hour walkout begins

Nurses across Northern Ireland are joining colleagues in England and Wales in a 12-hour strike, the largest action of its kind in NHS history.

Emergency and urgent care will continue to be provided by staff but planned surgery will be disrupted from 08:00.

Under trade union laws, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has to ensure life-preserving care remains during the strike.

Trusts have said services including non-emergency care will be affected.

Outpatient appointments and community nursing have been postponed. There will also be fewer nurses available on non-urgent wards.

This is the second time in three years that nurses in Northern Ireland have taken to the picket line to appeal for safe staffing and fair pay.

However, this time they are joined by nurses across England and Wales in what is considered the biggest industrial action in the NHS’s history.

Speaking from outside Antrim Area Hospital Denise Kelly, who has been a nurse for 30 years, said she believed nurses had public support, despite the disruption for patients.

“The health secretary – they are flagging up patients’ appointments being cancelled today – nurses did not create these waiting lists, we did not create these pressures.

“We’re here to advocate and fight for [patients] as well.”

The RCN, a trade union which represents almost 500,000 nurses in the UK, said it is campaigning for a pay rise of 5% above the RPI inflation rate to overcome real-terms pay cuts, which, it says, have left nurses 20% worse off since 2010.

In a statement, the Department of Health said fragile services will inevitably be further impaired by the strike and that the reality is there are no quick and simple solutions to the pay dispute.

The nurses’ strike comes three days after health sector workers from three of Northern Ireland’s biggest unions held a 24-hour strike over pay and conditions.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said the union is calling for a pay rise of 19.2% but ministers say this is unaffordable.

The strike comes after failed pay talks between Health Secretary Steve Barclay and Pat Cullen, the head of the RCN.

Ms Cullen said the health secretary refused to discuss pay in their meeting on Monday and therefore strikes would go ahead as planned on 15 and 20 December.

A spokesperson said the health secretary told Ms Cullen that any further pay increase would mean taking money away from front line services and tackling the post-Covid backlog.

Ms Cullen said she was “extremely disappointed at the belligerence shown” by him in the meeting.

The RCN said its pay demands follow years of squeezes on nurses’ salaries, which have not kept up with the rising cost of living.

On Wednesday, RCN members said they were shocked and devastated by a letter sent to the trade union by the chief nursing officers of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The letter, addressed to Ms Cullen, said they felt let down by the RCN and asked it to reconsider given how the strike could affect certain services, such as end-of-life care and mental health.

Maureen Dolan, an RCN representative and nurse in the Southern Trust, said nurses expected the chief nursing officers to support them.

“To think that they believe we’re putting our patients at risk when the point to the strike is to ensure our patients aren’t at risk because of poor staffing,” she told BBC Radio Ulster’s Evening Extra programme.

Nurse Denise Kelly, who is also National Chair of the RCN trade union committee, spoke to the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme from the picket line outside Antrim Area Hospital.

She explained the action was not just about pay, but also about patient safety, because the NHS cannot attract enough staff into nursing with its current offer.

“We’re under pressure, services are compromised each and every day. We know that Northern Ireland had the highest waiting lists in the whole of the United Kingdom,” she added.

“This is why we’re here to day, we’re wanting to do something about that.”

Northern Ireland’s five health trusts have issued information on how the strikes will affect services in each area.

Western Trust

Read more on the Western Trust website.

Southern Trust

Read more on the Southern Trust website.

South Eastern Trust

Read more on the South Eastern Trust website.

Northern Trust

Read more on the Northern Trust website.

Belfast Trust