UUP Health spokesperson, Alan Chambers said:

“Our Health Service workers should not have to be on the picket line, and undoubtedly they are there because they feel they have no other option.  They are not immune to the cost of living crisis and have stretched themselves to breaking point in recent years to keep the health service running during some of the most challenging conditions imaginable.  

“When the current pay review body recommendations were made last summer, it was before the full extent of the inflation crisis was apparent.  With this in mind, we would call on the review bodies to make a revised and increased offer that takes the rise in inflation into consideration.   

“Ideally this should be something the UK moves on together as a nation, given the additional costs involved, with Treasury providing the additional cash in order to avoid frontline services being impacted.  

“The UUP means what we say on supporting staff pay.  In the last full year that we held the Health Ministry we not only delivered on independent pay recommendations in full but we also awarded all HSC staff an additional 1.5% non-consolidated increase, going further than England and Wales.   

“Our Health Service workers do an incredible job in exceptionally difficult circumstances, that has been compounded by only having a functioning government for two of the last six years.  They cannot continue to be failed like this.”