Leo Varadkar hopes deal can tackle A&E crisis

Health Minister Leo Varadkar said he hopes “a deeper level of trust” will develop between hospital management and nursing staff after agreement was reached on a deal designed to tackle overcrowding in emergency departments (EDs).

The breakthrough means a deferral of industrial action — planned for seven EDs next Thursday — to allow nurses time to consider and ballot on the revised proposals which emerged in the early hours of yesterday after a marathon session at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).

The executive council of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) is recommending acceptance of the deal which contains a number of assurances that measures agreed before Christmas to tackle ED overcrowding and understaffing will actually be implemented. It also clarifies procedures for early identification of the risk of overcrowding, and of the operation of crisis protocols known as escalation policies.