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#AceBreakingNews – Nurses across Northern Ireland are joining colleagues in England and Wales in a 12-hour strike, the largest action of its kind in NHS history.

Emergency and urgent care will continue to be provided by staff but planned surgery will be disrupted from 08:00.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said staff had been given no choice after ministers refused to reopen pay talks.

Trusts have said services including non-emergency care will be affected.

Under trade union laws, the RCN has to ensure life-preserving care remains during the strike. 

Outpatient appointments and community nursing have been postponed. There will also be fewer nurses available on non-urgent wards.

The UK government said the RCN’s 19% pay rise demand was unaffordable.

‘We did not create waiting lists’

This is the second time in three years that nurses in Northern Ireland have taken to the picket line to appeal for safe staffing and fair pay.

However, this time they are joined by nurses across England and Wales in what is considered the biggest industrial action in the NHS’s history.

Speaking from outside Antrim Area Hospital Denise Kelly, who has been a nurse for 30 years, said she believed nurses had public support, despite the disruption for patients. 

“The health secretary – they are flagging up patients’ appointments being cancelled today – nurses did not create these waiting lists, we did not create these pressures. 

“We’re here to advocate and fight for [patients] as well,” she said.

Nurses on the picket line at the South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen in freezing conditions

Staff on the picket line in Omagh

Ursula Barrett, who works in emergency department (ED) at the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) in Enniskillen, also said nurses were concerned about providing a safe service.

“Every ED, every ward, there’s breaches, there are no beds, there’s no patients being able to be discharged to create beds.

“I could be one of those patients or any of our relatives could be one of those patients,” she said. 

BBC NI South West reporter, Julian Fowler, said staff at SWAH were dealing with freezing temperatures on the picket line. 

He said drivers had been sounding their horns in support despite disruption to services. 

The Western Health Trust confirmed that 587 outpatient appointments across its sites have been postponed because of the strike.

Eight planned inpatient and day case procedures have been cancelled.

Eleven GP practice treatment rooms, which are managed by the trust, will stay closed on Thursday and community nursing services will be reduced. 

Why is the strike happening? 

Newly-qualified nurses talk about their future in the health service as it faces mounting pressure

The RCN, a trade union which represents almost 500,000 nurses in the UK, said it is campaigning for a pay rise of 5% above the RPI inflation rate to overcome real-terms pay cuts, which, it says, have left nurses 20% worse off since 2010. 

In a statement, the Department of Health said fragile services will inevitably be further impaired by the strike and that the reality is there are no quick and simple solutions to the pay dispute.

The nurses’ strike comes three days after health sector workers from three of Northern Ireland’s biggest unions held a 24-hour strike over pay and conditions.

Rush-hour drivers in Belfast are sounding their horns in support as they drive past the City Hospital, where nurses have a picket line beside a busy commuter road.Although this is the first ever UK-wide RCN walkout, members of the union here in Northern Ireland have gone on strike before.On a similarly cold a December day in 2019, they took to the picket lines over similar issues. Back then, as now, there was no devolved government due to a crisis at Stormont. The previous strike was regarded as a catalyst for ending the political impasse after three years. While pay negotiations are carried out nationally, the devolved government generally pays out the salaries.The power vacuum in Northern Ireland adds more difficulties – and many would say, causes more frustration – in this dispute.

The strike comes after failed pay talks between Health Secretary Steve Barclay and Pat Cullen, the head of the RCN.Ms Cullen said the health secretary refused to discuss pay in their meeting on Monday and therefore strikes would go ahead as planned on 15 and 20 December.

What will nurses’ strike mean for patients?The strikes taking place in DecemberWould pay demands cost an extra £28bn?A spokesperson said the health secretary told Ms Cullen that any further pay increase would mean taking money away from front line services and tackling the post-Covid backlog. The RCN said its pay demands follow years of squeezes on nurses’ salaries, which have not kept up with the rising cost of living. ‘We are here to fight for our patients’Nurse Denise Kelly, who is also National Chair of the RCN trade union committee, spoke to the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme from the picket line outside Antrim Area Hospital.She explained the action was not just about pay, but also about patient safety, because the NHS cannot attract enough staff into nursing with its current offer.

There are nearly 3,000 nursing vacancies in Northern Ireland.”We’re under pressure, services are compromised each and every day. We know that Northern Ireland had the highest waiting lists in the whole of the United Kingdom,” she added.”This is why we’re here today, we’re wanting to do something about that.”Nurses outside Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry on Thurday morningOn the picket line outside Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry, Nurse Laura McClintock said nurses had to strike to “advocate for patient care”. “No nurse enters the profession expecting to be rich but things at the moment are so desperate, we are haemorrhaging staff.”I love my job, love my patients, but what I see is people are struggling, nurses are struggling”.How will services be affected?Northern Ireland’s five health trusts have issued information on how the strikes will affect services in each area.

Outpatient appointments, including urgent ones, are postponedInpatient and day case procedures cancelledGP practice treatment rooms closedRead more on the Western Trust website. Phone First service not operating – reopens on Friday Minor injuries service closed at South Tyrone Hospital – reopens on Friday Day cases, outpatient and inpatient appointments cancelledRead more on the Southern Trust website.

Majority of outpatient and diagnostic appointments postponed, as well as a majority of elective surgery proceduresMinor Injuries Unit in the Ards Hospital closed and will reopen on FridayEmergency surgery will continue and the Chemotherapy and Renal Dialysis Units are openRead more on the South Eastern Trust website.

Outpatient appointments including ENT, general surgery and day case procedures postponed Mental health services and school flu vaccination service affectedSome GP treatments room closed and others operating a reduced serviceRead more on the Northern Trust website. The Belfast Trust says there will be disruption to their services and that they are working collectively to try and minimise the impact on their service users

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