HSE advertisment for new senior position in Cork sparks row with psychiatric nurses

Waiting lists in the HSE’s North Lee section have increased 28-fold since 2020, with 5,009 children now awaiting an initial psychological appointment in the Cork/Kerry region.

A major industrial relations row has sprung up in the HSE after the executive advertised for a new senior position in Cork which would see psychiatric nurses overseen by the psychology service.

The competition for Director of Psychology in the southwest, which ended on August 1, sought applicants for a post that would oversee the “psychological service beyond psychology to include counsellors, behaviour therapists and psychotherapist, nurses with psychotherapy/counselling training".

The role comes with a base starting salary of €120,000.

The latter part of the job oversight description has aggravated psychiatric nurses and their unions.

There are currently in the region of 7,400 psychiatric nurses in Ireland. Ordinarily, their profession reports to the director of nursing for their region, a post that is already filled within the HSE South West.

Early last week the profession’s principle union, the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA), wrote to the HSE’s HR function to say that the post had been advertised “without any discussion or agreement with the PNA” and that this fact was “unacceptable”.

The PNA said it had only been made aware of the role’s existence on July 29, just three days before the application portal closed.

“The fact that this has been advertised, with an imminent closing date, without any notification or engagement is highly concerning and has caused a great deal of unease amongst our membership effected (sic),” Michael Hayes, industrial relations officer with the PNA, wrote.

“It goes without saying that no PNA member will cooperate with such a fundamental shift in governance structure, and we would ask that said job description is withdrawn immediately,” he said, adding that the job notice represents “a clear attempt to alter the terms and conditions of employment of our members”.

Waiting lists

Last month, the Irish Examiner revealed that the waiting lists in the HSE’s North Lee section had increased 28-fold since 2020, with 5,009 children now awaiting an initial psychological appointment in the Cork/Kerry region.

A HSE spokesperson said that it is “committed to respecting the governance boundaries of other disciplines”.

“Our primary objective with this new post is to enhance clinical governance, ensuring that our services are both safe and of the highest quality,” the spokesperson said, adding that the HSE “will also engage with relevant representative bodies as needed, to maintain open communication and collaborative progress”.

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They declined to state how many applications had been received for the role “in the interest of maintaining the integrity and openness of our ongoing recruitment campaign”.

Local Cork councillor and clinical psychologist Liam Quaide described the new role as showing that “professional imperialism is unfortunately alive and well in some parts of the health service”.

“My nurse therapist colleagues will resist this attempted encroachment on their governance,” Mr Quaide said.