{"id":86292,"date":"2026-06-25T07:32:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T07:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/ni-health-consultants-and-specialist-doctors-begin-strike-action\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T07:32:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T07:32:00","slug":"ni-health-consultants-and-specialist-doctors-begin-strike-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=86292","title":{"rendered":"NI health: Consultants and specialist doctors begin strike action"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dr David Farren, chair of BMA&#8217;s Northern Ireland consultants committee, said: &#8220;No doctor wants to take strike action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;However, there is a palpable sense of anger among all secondary care doctors at years of significant pay erosion in return for trying to deliver care in an overstretched health system.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dr Leanne Davison, chair of BMA&#8217;s Northern Ireland SAS committee, said the health service can &#8220;no longer run on the goodwill of front-line staff&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Doctors are choosing to leave the health service or to reduce their contracted hours due to continued pay erosion and we can see the outworkings of this in services having to close due to staffing shortages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Those with the power to change this have so far chosen not to, which has forced hospital doctors into the unacceptable position of taking strike action in order to be heard.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The health minister said to go beyond the 3.5% as recommended by the independent pay review recommendation would have &#8220;significant repercussions for nurses, teachers, police officers and indeed the entire public sector workforce&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I reiterate my commitment to ensuring HSC colleagues receive their recommended 26-27 pay uplifts, despite the unprecedented shortfall as indicated in my draft budget,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There is simply no scope for pay awards beyond the recommendations of the review bodies in 26-27.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr David Farren, chair of BMA&#8217;s Northern Ireland consultants committee, said: &#8220;No doctor wants to take&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1405,1311,652,231,6654,189],"class_list":["post-86292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-action","tag-consultants","tag-doctors","tag-health","tag-specialist","tag-strike"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.0 (Yoast SEO v28.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>NI health: Consultants and specialist doctors begin strike action - Gulf Times | News by the minute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Gulf Times: Latest news across the GCC from UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NI health: Consultants and specialist doctors begin strike action\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Gulf News| UAE&#039;s Largest News aggregator site\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&amp;at_campaign=rss\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gulf Times | News by the minute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/100084981843786\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-25T07:32:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/3c0ac080-6fd9-11f1-8388-87b50ca0bd23.avif\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"gulftimes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Gulftimesuae\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Gulftimesuae\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"gulftimes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"NI health: Consultants and specialist doctors begin strike action - Gulf Times | News by the minute","description":"Gulf Times: Latest news across the GCC from UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"NI health: Consultants and specialist doctors begin strike action","og_description":"Gulf News| UAE's Largest News aggregator site","og_url":"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss","og_site_name":"Gulf Times | News by the minute","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/100084981843786","article_published_time":"2026-06-25T07:32:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/3c0ac080-6fd9-11f1-8388-87b50ca0bd23.avif","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"gulftimes","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Gulftimesuae","twitter_site":"@Gulftimesuae","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"gulftimes","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=86292"},"author":{"name":"gulftimes","@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#\/schema\/person\/4c5b0f90aae48bb43165ee6e39ddc977"},"headline":"NI health: Consultants and specialist doctors begin strike action","datePublished":"2026-06-25T07:32:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=86292"},"wordCount":228,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/3c0ac080-6fd9-11f1-8388-87b50ca0bd23.avif","keywords":["action","consultants","doctors","health","specialist","strike"],"articleSection":["Health"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=86292","url":"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss","name":"NI health: Consultants and specialist doctors begin strike action - Gulf Times | News by the minute","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/3c0ac080-6fd9-11f1-8388-87b50ca0bd23.avif","datePublished":"2026-06-25T07:32:00+00:00","description":"Gulf Times: Latest news across the GCC from UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/3c0ac080-6fd9-11f1-8388-87b50ca0bd23.avif","contentUrl":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/3c0ac080-6fd9-11f1-8388-87b50ca0bd23.avif","width":1200,"height":675},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c14y72vkv3yo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"NI health: Consultants and specialist doctors begin strike action"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#website","url":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/","name":"Gulf Times | News by the minute","description":"Largest News Aggregator in the Gulf","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#organization"},"alternateName":"Gulf News Aggregator","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#organization","name":"Gulf Times","url":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"","contentUrl":"","caption":"Gulf Times"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/100084981843786","https:\/\/x.com\/Gulftimesuae"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#\/schema\/person\/4c5b0f90aae48bb43165ee6e39ddc977","name":"gulftimes","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a8f9c2e07a9cd7e7e7c302c8c7ce8d5e0865a0bbcc732793d6e761588fd10b03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a8f9c2e07a9cd7e7e7c302c8c7ce8d5e0865a0bbcc732793d6e761588fd10b03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a8f9c2e07a9cd7e7e7c302c8c7ce8d5e0865a0bbcc732793d6e761588fd10b03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"gulftimes"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/gulftimes.ae"],"url":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/86293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}