A REDUCTION in the working week has now been officially agreed for more than 21,000 nurses in the public sector, according to new figures drawn up last week by the Department of Health.
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 affecting services.
A complex independent verification process assessed whether local deals reached between management and unions in hospitals and community areas on reduced hours met these criteria.
The new Department of Health figures show that the verification group has now validated agreements covering 21,112 nurses.
Health services management sources said that this represented about two-thirds of all nurses in the public sector and that it was anticipated that further progress would be made in increasing this number over the next week or so.
Last week the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) said that nurses in the five hospitals in the northeast would be balloted on industrial action unless new rosters to reduce their working hours were implemented. INO general secretary Liam Doran said at the time that the northeast was "the only area where no acute hospital at all has introduced the reduced working week".
