ADJ-00006746

Complainant

Respondent

Parties

A Clinical Nurse Manager

A Hospital

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

CA-00009136-001

17/01/2017

The complainant seeks to be made supernumerary as a Clinical Nurse Manager 2 (CNM2) in her unit, by way of management recruiting sufficient additional staff to facilitate her release to supernumerary duties.

The complainant is employed as a CNM2 in a special unit in the hospital. In recent years, the activity levels in the Unit have increased, and have included new treatment methods. This has increased the complainant’s management of the Nursing Team’s adherence to, and contribution to the development and maintenance of Nursing standards, protocols and guidelines consistent with the highest standards of care, both at a practical ‘hands on’ and staff mentoring level.   The fact that the complainant is not supernumerary means that she cannot always perform all of her managerial duties on the Unit (when she is providing direct care) and yet as a CNM2 she is responsible and accountable for the full performance of the managerial aspects of her CNM2 position. It is submitted that this is grossly unfair to the complainant, as she often has to complete some CNM2 work on her own time. In February 2015, she wrote to her Director of Nursing seeking that she would fully effect her CNM2 role and work as a supernumerary as “is the norm in all other units..”.   She explained that her lack of supernumerary status in the unit as CNM2 means that the requirement to perform hands on care detracts from her capacity to perform focussed and planned supervisory functions at all times.     She received no response to her letter. The INMO took up her case and correspondence between the parties ensued in which a claim was lodges on 4^th June 2015.   In November 2015, the DoN replied stating that they had increased the number of staff in the unit and that this had proved difficult from a recruitment perspective. She outlined that her first priority was the safety of the patients, and making the complainant supernumerary would have a detrimental affect on the staffing levels. Further correspondence was exchanged between the INMO and the Director of Nursing, in which the DoN confirmed that they were having difficulty filling existing posts, and the INMO formally requested the recruitment of one whole-time equivalent to facilitate the release of the complainant. The matter was not resolved and was then referred to the WRC. It is argued that the complainant is the only CNM2 who is not supernumerary in the hospital and that it is grossly unfair that she has to carry the full workload of the clinical post and managerial duties.

The unit has an approved funded staffing level of 9.7 wte including the CNM2 post. The current staffing level is deemed as being the correct, safe staffing level for the unit. The claim is for “supernumerary” status in line with other CNM2s within the hospital.   Supernumerary is protected time for a CNM2 to carry out specific managerial aspects of the CNM2 post. The amount of time allocated as protective time varies according to the speciality, bed complement and complexity of the patients being cared for in the unit.  It is acknowledged that there are CNM2s within the hospital that have protected time but the amount of protected time has been reduced significantly due to the ongoing shortage of nurses that had protected time now being required to provide direct patient care to cover staff shortages. It should be noted that not all CNM2s in the hospital are “supernumerary”. The CNM2 in the Outpatients Department has limited protected time and others have little or no protected time, especially given the staff shortages. It should be noted that management have not refused the complainant protected time but providing 39 hours per week protected time is not feasible given the current number of approved funded posts and the current difficulties in recruiting nurses.