Rodgers was speaking during a four nation roundtable at the HPMA conference in Belfast last week.

When asked why Northern Ireland was still to achieve pay parity, Rodgers said: ‘It's disappointing that we can't move at the same pace as everybody else.'

Rodgers said the ‘really pressured' current financial situation was not conducive to finding long-term settlements on workforce pay.

‘It's a very difficult situation that we find ourselves in,' he added.

Rodgers said pay parity remained ‘an ambition', adding it was ‘not an unusual position for Northern Ireland to be behind everybody else'.

He added that some of this was due to the ‘unique political situation' with Northern Ireland not having had an executive for two years.

People leaders from the four UK nations spoke at the roundtable on finding opportunities to find opportunities for greater collaboration on workforce challenges.  

All agreed there was a real benefit to closer collaboration while acknowledging there was no current system in place for this to take place.

The other panel members were: Fiona Hogg, chief people officer, Directorate of Health Workforce from Scotland, Thomas Simons, chief HR & OD Officer, NHS England, and Helen Watkins, director of workforce and OD, Health Education and Improvement Wales.