Dr David Farren, chair of BMA’s Northern Ireland consultants committee, said: 

“The latest HSC workforce and recruitment statistics fall short of painting a true picture of the consultant workforce crisis. Although it tells us overall workforce numbers have slightly increased, consultant vacancies have risen by 9.7% on last year, 50.5% since March 2019 and we now have the second highest vacancy rate (7.8%) in the entire health service behind social workers (12.9%).
 
“More worryingly, these numbers still do not capture the true extent of the consultant vacancy numbers as they exclude vacant posts on hold or not yet at recruitment stage, so the true figures will be significantly worse.
 
“Unclear and inaccurate recruitment statistics leads to poor workforce planning decisions and puts increasing pressure on consultants to cover staffing gaps in order to maintain a safe level of service. Our members tell us that workforce capacity is simply not meeting growing patient demand, and we can see this in the department’s own waiting lists stats for 2025/26 which detail a 3.4% increase in attendances at consultant-led outpatient services from the previous year, 18.3% higher than five years ago.
 
“This is unsustainable and, alongside successive below inflation and late pay awards, there is a palpable sense of anger among consultants and all secondary care doctors who are facing years of significant pay erosion in return for trying to deliver care in an overstretched health system. This is while their colleagues elsewhere in the UK are paid their uplifts on time. It should therefore come as no surprise to the new Health minister that consultants returned a resounding ‘yes’ vote for industrial action this year alongside our SAS and resident doctor colleagues.
 
“Pay is a key factor in recruiting and retaining doctors in Northern Ireland to treat growing patient need. The new Health minister now has an opportunity to help take the first step in reversing this mismatch between workforce capacity and service demand by engaging with us meaningfully over pay as a matter of urgency.”