Nurses in the Isle of Man will be taking more industrial action this summer as they seek better pay.

Manx Care has said it does not have the funding available to offer an enhanced deal and has exhausted its funding pot.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) confirmed there will be more industrial action following this week’s strike, as well as expressing its disappointment in the government and that no MHKs attended the picket line outside Noble’s Hospital.

The RCN has said the next industrial action could extend over a number of days.

Around 120 face-to-face appointments were cancelled on Tuesday as nurses protested in wet conditions from 8am until 8pm.

The RCN members rejected the most recent pay offer proposed by Manx Care, which was a £1,000 consolidated payment for the pay year 2022-23 in addition to the 6% already awarded in November 2022.

Earlier this week the Isle of Man Examiner reported that the RCN accused the government of ‘pitching public sector workers against each other’ after it announced every police officer in the island would receive an extra £3,000 in their pay packets on July 18, the same day as the nurses’ marched from Noble’s Hospital to Villiers Square.

Manx Care has said they remain open to dialogue with RCN members, however its options are limited due to financial constraints, having exhausted their funding pot.

All funding that has been received by the organisation to be used for pay awards has already been used to fund pay awards.

Mary-Anne Parkinson, senior RCN officer, said following a successful protest and picket line, further action will be taking place in the near future, and could be more damaging to Noble’s Hospital.

She said: ‘The strike action saw an excellent turnout and at one point we had over 250 nurses there, and even when we were closing the picket line at 8pm we still had around 50 nurses.

‘At this moment we’re considering all the options.

‘We will definitely be taking more industrial action, it’s just whether we do other things as well in a way to make the government reconsider their financial position to the organisation.

‘Our industrial action could become more than one day, we might extend it to a couple of days, and that would really put the island in question from the point of view of clinical delivery.

‘We don’t need to do any more ballots because we have an open mandate to take industrial action indefinitely.

‘All we need to do is give seven days’ notice to Manx Care.

‘We’ve already done a protest, now we’re considering what we call a community assembly, where we ask everybody and anybody, such as firefighters, teachers, any of the other trade unions, to come together along with the members of the public to talk about what the issues are and what the concerns are that we have as a profession on the Isle of Man and what the impact of such action has on the island.’

Mary-Anee added that the feedback to the strike was mostly positive, however she was disappointed and surprised at the lack of response from the government.

She said: ‘We’ve had the usual type of feedback, mostly positive but a couple of negative ones, but nothing that we wouldn’t expect.

‘People either agree with what we’re doing or they don’t.

‘It’s been mostly positive though and the public have been really good, loads of people turning up providing food and drink and wishing us well.

‘The chief executive of Manx Care, the director of operations and the director of nursing all came down to see us at various times too.

‘But we had absolutely nothing from the MHKs or government, none of them came anywhere near.

‘No contact at all from the government is really disappointing.

‘We asked members of the government to attend and some nurses even asked their own local MHKs but not one of them actually came, which we found surprising to be honest as we were there for a long time.’

She added: ‘They could’ve just driven past and said look I’m really busy I can’t stop but no, absolutely nothing.’

Mary-Anne Parkinson told the Courier that Health Minister Lawrie Hooper and Treasury Minister Dr Alex Allinson had said they would attend the 12 hour strike.

However, Mr Hooper said he was only contatced at 7.10pm on the day of the strike, and responded that due to prior commitments he was unable to attend.

He added that he ‘understands the strength of feeling and hopes that a sustainable and fair deal will be reached for all parties’.

Dr Alex Allinson said his attendance at the picket line was not a commitment he had made.

He added: ‘I continue to support an open and constructive dialogue between Manx Care and the nursing unions to address the concerns of nursing staff.’

Mary-Anne said following the strike there are lessons to be learnt for the RCN.

She said: ‘There’s certainly things we can do differently next time, because there will be a next time, but I believe the biggest disappointment is we didn’t get the traction from government’.