Union calls for 12.5% pay rise to help retain NI nurses and secure safe levels of staffing
A NURSING union is calling for a 12.5% pay rise for nurses in Northern Ireland to encourage more people to enter the profession.
The Royal College of Nursing yesterday launched its Uk-wide Fair Pay for Nursing campaign.
It wants staff to receive an immediate 12.5% wage increase as part of a one-year deal which applies equally to all nursing bands.
According to the union, there are an estimated 50,000 registered nursing vacancies in the NHS in the UK. The union has warned this figure could rise even during 2020.
Last month a report by the
Northern Ireland Audit Office said £115m is spent every year on temporary staff to cover nursing shortages here.
The RCN has said a recent survey of 42,000 RCN members showed 35% are thinking of leaving the profession this year, with over half citing pay as a factor.
The union said it will continue to work with other health unions to call on all the devolved governments to provide nursing and health care staff with an “early and substantive pay rise”.
Pat Cullen, director of the RCN NI, who warned in June that nurses could return to the picket line after holding strikes earlier this year for increased pay and better conditions, said wages for the profession must be attractive to secure safe nursing levels.
“Nurses in Northern Ireland are only too aware of the impact of not having enough nurses to care for patients,” she said.
“This is why they took the difficult decision to take industrial action earlier this year and why we fought so hard for the guarantee that safe nurse staffing legislation would be implemented here.”
The union chief continued: “We need to ensure that nursing remains an attractive profession and that we are training and retaining the right numbers of nurses in order to do this. The public have made it clear that they value the profession — we must ensure their pay reflects this.”
Dame Donna Kinnair, RCN chief executive and general secretary, insisted the campaign is about “recognising the skill, experience and responsibility” shown by all members of the nursing profession.
“This is about more than the profession’s response to Covid-19 — it is about increasing the attractiveness of the profession, to fill tens of thousands of unfilled nursing jobs and reach safe staffing levels. It is time to pay nursing staff fairly,” she said.
Meanwhile, Graham Revie, chair of the RCN’S trade union committee, said the pay demand reflects the “knowledge, skills and responsibilities of the complex job we do”.
“RCN members have told us they expect things to change, and we will fight for that change. The RCN is its members and together we can achieve fair pay for nursing,” he said.
“Nursing... has been underfunded, understaffed and undervalued. The government should make the right choice now.”