Nurses taking a ‘hard line’ in response to benchmarking decision

THE Psychiatric Nurses’ Association will spend the next number of weeks consulting with members to determine what action to take in response to the failure of benchmarking to grant any pay increase to the majority of nurses.

Yesterday the association’s national executive met to discuss the fallout following the decision not to award any increase to up to 40,000 nurses, despite government assurances to nursing unions that benchmarking would deal with their pay claims.

Association general secretary Des Kavanagh said it was taking a “very hard line” in response to the benchmarking decision and was looking at every option.