The Labour Court has recommended increases of £1,000 to £1,500 a year in allowances for staff nurses with additional qualifications, or those working in particularly demanding areas. This goes some way towards meeting the demands of the Nursing Alliance in this area and should benefit between 50 per cent and 60 per cent of the 20,000 staff nurses in the public health service. The estimated cost is £25 million a year.
However, the court has not recommended any specific increases on the other two issues referred to it by the Commission on Nursing. These are the improved differentials for the new grades of Clinical Nurse Managers (CNM) and Clinical Nurse Practitioners (CNP), and the additional increments for long-service staff nurses.
The CNMs are intended to replace ward sisters and the CNPs would be a new grade of staff nurse with special clinical expertise. The court accepts that poor pay differentials constitute an obstacle to progress and it recommends that talks on the new structures be undertaken by both sides as a matter of urgency. It proposes that they both report back by May 1st on progress in discussions. If agreement is not reached by then the court will make a "definitive" recommendation.
The court has proposed that the issue of long service increments be referred back to the established structures. If this fails it would leave open the avenue of further intervention by the Labour Relations Commission or the court.