UPDATE ON AGENDA FOR CHANGE PAY – PAY PARITY TO BE RESTORED AND CAMPAIGN FOR PAY JUSTICE GOES ON
Following announcements earlier this month by the Health Minister on funding for 2025/26 Agenda for Change (AfC) pay, UNISON entered further discussions with the Department of Health. It has been confirmed by the Department that it will proceed to put in place a consolidated 3.6% pay uplift for the AfC workforce, fully backdated to 1st April 2025. The Department has stated that this will be paid to the workforce in February 2026.
This will restore pay parity with the NHS workforce in England and vindicates the clear stand taken by UNISON members that the commitment to pay parity must be honoured.
In light of this, the UNISON NI Health Care Service Group has decided that the planned ballot for industrial action that had been due to commence in November will not proceed at this time.
However, the Service Group remains absolutely clear that much more needs to be done by the Minister, Department and employers to comprehensively tackle the persistent problems of low pay across the health service. The UNISON campaign against low pay continues. Discussions with the Department will go on and we are demanding that progress be made as swiftly as possible so that the real Living Wage is the minimum standard on pay. We will hold the Minister, Department and employers to account if they do not move to address the serious problems of low pay.
It is once again the case that our members will have to wait until the end of the financial year to receive an uplift in their pay, many months after their counterparts elsewhere, and only after preparations to ballot members for industrial action were well advanced.
The Minister and Department have stated that they are committing to ensuring pay is prioritised in the Department’s budget in 2026/27. UNISON, alongside other health unions, will seek early discussions with the Minister and Department as the budget for 2026/27 is being set, with the aim of securing agreed progress on pay as soon as possible in 2026/27. The unacceptable cycle of delays seen in putting pay right for the workforce cannot be allowed to continue any longer.