RCN members are working with HSC services and they are going to be balloted on industrial action. This happens to include strike action and even the nursing staffing crisis. This is fantastic news for those who work in a nurse agency or even those who work as part of a nursing recruitment agency. Of course, it’s important to know that this announcement comes at a time where there are 3,000 nursing posts across the system, and they have a similar level of vacancies. Of course, it’s important to note that pay for nursing staff within the health service sector continues to fall behind Scotland, England and Wales. The real value for pay in NI has fallen by a total of 15% when you look at the last few years and this is not good news at all.

Pat Cullen is the director of RCN and she has come out to say that the time has come where members are saying clearly that they can’t keep on working under the current conditions. They all know that the nurses in the North of Ireland can go anywhere they want to work. To this date, any discussions regarding pay have been unsuccessful and there is now nothing at all to keep any newly qualified nurses at home. When you look at the profession overall, you will soon see that it is no longer prepared to tolerate the risk that comes with low staffing levels. No nurse would ever want to take any kind of industrial action but that being said, they haven’t been left with much of a choice.

This marks a sad day for the North of Ireland, but is anything really going to change with this movement? Only time will tell.