NHS workers in Belfast are being offered foodbank vouchers, with many at breaking point as they struggle to cope with rising prices and poverty pay.

Public-sector union Unison revealed yesterday that its shop stewards were handing out vouchers to staff at the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) in West Belfast and Ulster Hospital in the east of the city who are “struggling to put food on the table.”

Unison RVH branch secretary Conor McCarthy branded the British government’s austerity measures “a virus that is destroying our communities and workplaces.”