Published: Wednesday, 10th March, 2010 6:00pm

Palliative nurses fail in bid to get paid for out of hours duties

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A claim by the Irish Nurses and Midwives' Organisation (INMO) that clinical nurse specialists working for the HSE in the midlands should be paid for the time they spend on the phone at weekends to patients' relatives has failed to succeed.

The INMO brought the case against the HSE Midlands before the Labour Court on behalf of nurses providing palliative care to patients in the patients' own homes at weekends.

The Labour Court was told that if a call-out is required, the appropriate payments are applied and travel expenses are also paid.

The issue in dispute, however, concerned time spent speaking to patients/relatives on the telephone while deciding if a call out is necessary.

The Union's claim was that such time should be reckonable for call-out payments, as it is an essential part of the service and is more time and cost effective than unnecessary call-outs.

The HSE position was that the on-call allowance payable to the clinical nurse specialists is in excess of allowances paid to other nursing grades that provide on-call/call out services, and that the rates payable were enhanced following a review of the service conducted in 2006 which took into account the specialist nature of the work involved.

The Court heard that the dispute was not resolved at local level and was the subject of a conciliation conference under the auspices of the Labour Relations Commission. As agreement was not reached the matter was referred to the Labour Court on 21st January 2009, in accordance with Section 26(1) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1990. A Labour Court hearing took place on 2nd February, 2010.

At the hearing, the INMO argued that in many cases speaking on the telephone can prevent the necessity to make a call-out to a patient's home. The case was made that the nurses' claim was reasonable on the basis of the increased amount of calls and the frequent need to seek advice from the G.P before reverting to the patient/relative, and the expanding nature of the service.

The Union sought the premium rates to apply to time spent on telephones and on documentation work at weekends. It also sought retrospection of such payments back to June 2007 when it initiated its claim.

The HSE told the hearing that as well as receiving on-call/call-out payments, the staff in question receive an enhanced allowance for carrying a mobile phone, which is paid to take into account the specialised nature of the work

The HSE also argued that concession of the claim would not only be unsustainable but would also result in repercussive claims for all staff who carry mobile phones while on call at weekends.

The finding of the court was that the on call payments which apply to the claimants were reviewed in 2006 and take account of the specialised nature of the work required at weekends by the Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialists in comparison to similar/equivalent grades.

"For that reason the Court does not find merit in the Union's claim and therefore the claim is rejected," the court's written adjudication concluded.