Rory Kavanagh of the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) at Letterkenny has confirmed that a settlement has been reached in their industrial dispute with the HSE.
He told the Tirconail Tribune that the deal agreed ensures the protection of psychiatric nursing for the future and it was in everyone’s interest across the service to make the proposal work to the maximum levels.
The PNA has now called off its ongoing industrial action. Mr. Kavanagh said that all temporary nurses and 2016 graduates are to be offered permanent posts as part of the settlement terms.
The deal will see an additional 180 nurses in training by September 2017 and a pilot project for 24/7 for home crisis intervention is also being rolled out. By next year a total of 410 new nurse posts will be in place.
Mr. Kavanagh who is the PNA Industrial Relations Officer said the main outcome from the agreement is the safeguarding of psychiatric nursing and a number of new initiatives will be put in place to ensure the agreement is fully implemented.
Included in the new settlement terms is the introduction of new measures to tackle shortages ahead of training up sufficient staff numbers.
It is understood that one of the measures agreed to tackle staffing shortfalls is to get retired nurses to return to the service until the new nursing numbers are trained in four years time.
Meanwhile retired nurses returning to the service will be incentivized by being paid the level of salary they were paid on retirement. Until now nurses coming back into the service short time were paid the entry point of the salary scale.
Mr. Kavanagh said that getting retired nurses back into the service to deal with shortages was vital to address the crisis in nursing numbers across the country.
The deal struck on Tuesday at the Workplace as the PNA was about to move to Phase 3 in their actions. This would see a ban on working additional shifts and postponing holiday entitlements due to staff shortages.
Relations Commission (WRC) brings to an end the industrial action, which began six weeks ago.
The PNA said as a result all temporary nurses and 2016 graduates would be offered permanent posts, while the ‘bureaucratic process’ of recruitment would be revised and cut from as long as four months to no more than 28 days.
The dispute escalated when the PNA held a day of industrial action on June 29th with nurses not carrying out administrative duties, answering phones, filling in stat forms.
The PNA said there were concerns about the mental health service that have not been addressed.
At the time Rory Kavanagh said: “There has been a nursing shortage for a number of years and the services are totally reliant on overtime, agency and the good will of staff. At the moment there are over 600 vacancies. We estimate that over the next six months that could rise to 1,000.”
The PNA General Secretary designate Peter Hughes welcomed the breakthrough which he described as vitally important to the delivery of mental health services.
“This dispute has been a difficult process, but PNA members have been determined that a number of outstanding issues on the recruitment and retention of psychiatric nurses had to be addressed by the HSE and Department of Health, ” he said.
“The agreement is hugely important for the future safeguarding of mental health services with an implementation group that will ensure delivery of all parts of the agreement,” said Rory Kavanagh.
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