Most nurses still awaiting approval for shorter hours

IT NOW appears highly unlikely that agreements will be in place to allow for a shorter working week for the majority of the country’s 40,000 nurses from the start of next week as scheduled.

As part of a deal which ended a seven-week campaign of industrial action last year, the working week for nurses was to be reduced to 37.5 hours by the beginning of June on condition this could be achieved on a cost-neutral basis and without impacting on services.

However, at a meeting yesterday, an independent verification group – to assess whether local deals reached between management and unions in hospitals and community areas on reduced hours meet these criteria – validated agreements covering only 4,700 nurses. Last week the independent performance verification group signed off on agreements covering a further 380 nurses.

This means there are no validated agreements in place to reduce the working hours of about 35,000 nurses, although it is expected a significant number of other deals will be approved within a short period.

However, the Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) has said it believes the shorter working week should come into effect for all nurses from next week and management has had adequate time to make preparations. It has warned it will consider itself in dispute with management in locations where the reduced week is not implemented.

The INO has now asked the National Implementation Body, the main trouble-shooting mechanism under social partnership, which brokered the settlement to last year’s industrial action, to become involved again.

It has argued that the ground rules had changed since the deal was reached a year ago, in that there are now fewer staff on the payroll as a result of the Health Service Executive’s recruitment restrictions. It has said that the cutbacks had prevented agreements being reached.

Under the complex validation process, documentation signed by local and corporate management on agreements to reduce hours has to be given to the independent performance verification group. Informed sources said it appeared this process was nearly complete in a number of other hospitals and community care areas covering a further 5,000 or so nurses.

In some cases, the documentation produced contained qualifications such as a requirement for additional funding or staff and this issue has to be clarified before final approval is given by the independent group. The local deals on reduced hours involve generally amendments to rosters, the rescheduling of breaks or changes to the deployment of staff.