Department of Health to meet SIPTU to discuss graduate nursing scheme
Minister for Health, James Reilly, has said he would be “delighted” for the Department of Health to meet with SIPTU representatives to discuss alternative proposals to the nursing graduate scheme for savings in the health sector.
Reilly’s response follows a letter from the SIPTU Nurse and Midwife Sector Committee requesting an urgent meeting to discuss the ending of the graduate nursing scheme and the union’s alternative cost saving proposals.
SIPTU Sector Organiser, Kevin Figgis, said: “The necessary savings in this sector can be made without degrading the nursing profession by paying new entrants only 80% of the agreed nursing salary scale. For instance, immediate savings could be made by the Health Service Executive (HSE) employing nurses directly rather than through agencies which results in unnecessary expenditure on agency fees. The current HSE expenditure on agency nurses is in the region of €90 million and we estimate that this can be reduced by over 20% if nurses were directly employed.”
He added: “SIPTU believes that the Department of Health and the HSE must withdraw from the graduate nursing scheme and that engagement between the stakeholders must take place in order to ensure that the necessary recruitment of new nurses and midwives provides for the respect of their own position within the service.”
In response to a parliamentary question from Labour TD, Ged Nash, Reilly confirmed to the Dáil on Monday, 4th February, that only 92 people had applied to take part in the nursing graduate scheme by close of applications on Friday, 1st February. This is well short of the 1, 025 graduate nurses the HSE hoped to recruit under the scheme which was launched early in the year.
The scheme offers successful candidates €21,700 per annum against the agreed rate for new entrants of €27,234 which is paid to all nurses and midwives employed since 1st January 2011. The HSE stated that it planned to recruit 1,000 graduate midwives and nurses through the scheme.
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