Minister to meet health service trade unions

The Health Minister can confirm that he has sought an early meeting with health service trade unions to discuss next steps on pay offers for 2024/25.

The NI budgetary position means the Minister is not in a position to deliver the pay settlements he wants for this year.

Ahead of this week’s NI Executive monitoring round, the Department of Health had identified remaining financial pressures totalling £450m. This total included £320m to implement staff pay increases recommended by health service pay review bodies. Alongside these pay pressures, there was a £130m budget deficit, representing the gap between available funding and the cost of maintaining core health and social care services at current levels.

This week’s Executive monitoring round allocated an additional £350m for Health. While a significant sum, this still left a remaining funding gap of £100m. The prospect of any further additional monies being received in the remaining months of 2024/25 are extremely limited.

As feared, it has not been possible to fully bridge the funding deficit for Health that was publicly identified by the Department following the NI 2024/25 budget. This is despite over £200m in savings across the Health and Social Care system and in-year allocations from the Executive.

The remaining £100m gap means the Minister and Department are not in a position to match in full the pay awards made to health staff in England and Wales for this year.

The Minister has expressed his deep dissatisfaction with this position and recognises the justifiable frustration that the HSC workforce will feel.

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