Janice Smyth

THE biggest nursing trade union in Northern Ireland is taking the unprecedented step of balloting its members for industrial action over a pay dispute and unsafe staffing levels.

THE number of unfilled jobs in the nursing workforce across Northern Ireland has hit a record high - with new figures revealing more than 2,200 posts are lying vacant.

A HIGH level investigation is to take place examining the Belfast trust's handling of allegations of serious abuse of vulnerable adults at Muckamore Abbey Hospital.

THE lack of a health service workforce plan is "highly dangerous", a leading trade union has said as hospitals struggle to cope with an influx of winter patients.

THE head of the biggest nursing union in Northern Ireland has branded the use of St John ambulance volunteers to provide cover in an overstretched hospital on Year's Eve as "unbelievable".

THE Department of Health has responded to criticism of its handling of a delayed pay award for healthcare workers after a trade union chief branded it "shameful".

NURSES in the north are paid "less than anywhere in the UK", the Northern Ireland director of the Royal College of Nursing has said.

THE body that advises government on NHS pay has hit out at delays by the Department of Health in providing key information.

THE number of patients waiting for more than a year for major operations has tripled in just nine months - with almost 7,000 facing lengthy delays.

A resolution to a bitter two-year dispute over pay for nurses and thousands of other healthcare workers appeared to be reached last night.