Doctors leaders call for swift pay rise for Northern Ireland

Doctors in England, Scotland and Wales were on Tuesday awarded a 2.8% increase by their governments for the 2020/21 financial year.

The BMA’s Northern Ireland Council chairman Tom Black said: “The last four months of the Covid-19 pandemic will have been one of the most stressful periods of doctors’ working lives and yet they responded to it with commitment, hard work and innovation, willingly working long, unsociable hours away from their loved ones and putting their own wellbeing and lives at risk in the process.”

He said there have been significant delays to the pay award in Northern Ireland in recent years which has impacted morale and contributed to lack of pay parity, particularly during the months of delay.

Dr Black said: “Doctors and other frontline health service workers will be called on again to work above and beyond for our health service during what will be the busiest winter period it might see yet.

“The very least the Department of Health can do is to recognise these efforts by implementing the 2020/21 pay uplift in a timely fashion.”

In April, minister Robin Swann said a 2020/21 award fully established pay parity with England.