Health strike: Thousands more appointments cancelled by trusts

Nurses and other healthcare workers have been taking industrial action for several weeks

Thousands of hospital appointments have been cancelled across Northern Ireland's five health trusts ahead of Friday's planned strike action by the RCN and UNISON.

The Belfast Health Trust alone has cancelled more than 1,000 appointments.

The trust said 1,064 outpatient appointments and 106 day cases have been cancelled.

All the patients affected have been contacted and given a new appointment date.

Three special needs schools in Belfast and one in the South Eastern Trust will be closed.

Meanwhile, the South Eastern Trust has cancelled 340 outpatient appointments and 89 procedures.

Patricia McKeown of the union Unison described a meeting between the Department of Health and various unions on Thursday to discuss safe staffing levels as "very fraught".

"Same mantra as on pay, no minister available and no money available to move ahead with safe staffing," she told BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme.

"And a quite extraordinary development in the course of that meeting, the chief nursing officer issued a press release saying that the department now had the nursing and midwifery report and was going to review it.

"Now this is a review which is supposed to be co-design and co-production - so the workforce involved in what needs to happen for safe staffing, and also that is the last ministerial direction that we would do it jointly."

She added: "Quite extraordinary to issue the press release when the meeting had been called, you would expect the meeting would have a copy of the report and a real conversation could begin."

Trust chiefs have warned that winter pressures are particularly intense

The Western Trust has cancelled 383 outpatient appointments and 50 inpatient procedures.

It has also cancelled 700 treatment room appointments, as well as all out-patient clinics at Altnagelvin Hospital on Friday morning.

The Northern Trust has cancelled 30 outpatient appointments, 1,500 treatment room appointments and 850 routine district nursing appointments.

• Health crisis 'years in the making' - trust bosses

• Why are Northern Ireland's nurses going on strike?

In the Southern Trust, 43 surgical procedures have been postponed and approximately 145 treatment room appointments cancelled.

The South Eastern Trust has cancelled 340 outpatient appointments and 89 inpatient and day case procedures.

'Greater ED pressures'

Aside from the cancellations, minor injuries units in Mid Ulster, South Tyrone, Bangor and Ards will be closed, while hundreds of school and infant immunisations have been postponed across Northern Ireland.

The trusts have also said there will be greater pressures on emergency departments.

Earlier this week, six trust chief executives warned that the further strike action could push the system "beyond tipping point".

In a statement, they said the fall-out could be "much more serious" than the 18 December strike.

But the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and Unison said they were committed to strike.

They told BBC News NI that the public was firmly behind them.

On Wednesday, nurses from the RCN staged their second day of strike action over staffing levels and pay.

Healthcare members of Unison, Northern Ireland's largest union across the health and social services system, will be taking strike action on Friday.