The threat of strike action next month by 31,000 nurses, who had been told pay increases were likely to be withheld from them, has now been averted.
The Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) withdrew its threat of strike action yesterday after it was assured there was no longer uncertainty over whether its members would get pay increases of between 3.5 per cent and 5.5 per cent on June 1st.
The threat by health service employers to withhold these increases resulted from what it termed the INO's breach of Sustaining Progress for its non-co-operation with the introduction of special training for healthcare assistants to enable them take patients' temperature, pulse and blood pressure.
The INO said, when it served strike notice two weeks ago, that its members had identified difficulties "on professional, legal and ethical grounds" with healthcare assistants doing this work, and had sought talks with all regulatory bodies and stakeholders to air their concerns but their request had been refused.
The National Implementation Body, after meeting both sides in the dispute, said in a statement yesterday that it noted the INO had no principled objection to the implementation of all modules of the healthcare assistants' programme and that the Health Service Executive Employers Agency accepted there were issues of implementation that required clarification.
It recommended immediate and full co-operation with all of the training arrangements for the introduction of the programme at the earliest possible date and the setting up of a high-level group representing the main interest groups, including An Bord Altranais, with a view to developing an agreed programme of implementation by the end of September.
It also suggested pay increases due to nurses on June 1st should not be withheld.