PAY RISES FOR HOSPITAL NURSES

Grey River Argus, 16 April 1948, Page 7

PAY RISES FOR HOSPITAL NURSES

And Holiday Concessions

P.A. WELLINGTON, April 15. Provision for additional payment where the duty hours usually exceed 40 hours a week is included in the new scales of .pay and conditions of employment for nurses in the employ of hospital boards. The new scales, which were announced by the Minister of Health (the Hon. Mabel Howard), will be gazetted to-night and will become effective to-morrow, but hospital boards are authorised to pay the new scales from October 1 last. Among increa.ses in nurses’ salaries is a full ten per cent, overtime, to be payable for four or .more hours overtime in the week, with a smaller percentage for hours worked under four. .... , Hospital boards will be permitted to pay overtime allowances up to 10 per cent, of the basic salary provided the salary and overtime do not exceed £265 a year. The Minister commented that, unde present conditions, the majority of nurses would receive overtime. When a nurse lives out, she is to receive, in addition, an allowance varying in different centres from £BB’ to £ll4 a year for board and lodgings. All institutional nurses on full time employment are supplied with uniforms, and are also entitled to a free issue, annually, of two pairs of duty shoes, and six pairs of duty stockings. . The annual leave schedule is 23 days for hospital aids, pupil nurses, pupil nursing aids' and maternity trainees; 35 days for district nurses in rural areas on call seven days a week, and for the registered staffs of maternity hospitals- and tutor sisters; 28 days for all other classes of nurses. ' " The scale of sick leave is related to the length of service. It ranges from four weeks on full pay and four weeks on half pay in any one year for nurses with service up to four years, to ose year on full pay for nurses with more than thirty years’ service. There is also provision for sick leave with pay up to eight days each year in circumstances where it is necessary for a nurse to be off duty, and additional sick leave with pay is granted where sickness arises from a nurse’s employment. The general increase granted to nurses is £25 a year for a nurse “living out.’’ £l5 for a nurse “living in.”

NEW PAY RATES

The new pay rates are as follows, the old rates being given in parentheses: Pupil nurses £ll5 to £145 (£lOO to £130); staff-nurses £175 to £195 (£155 to £175); ward and departmental sisters £215 to £315 (£195 to £285); members of maternity hospital staff qualified as registered nurses and registered widwives, £255 to £355 (£215 to £305); ditto qualified as registered nurses and registered maternity nurses £225 to £325 (£205 to £295); maternity nurse trainees, if already qualified as registered nurses, £175 (£130). There is a special rate for certain matrons and sisters in .charge of tuberculosis institutions, and all other nurses in such institutions will receive £25 additional to the corresponding rates in general hospitals. (At present the sisters in tuberculosis annexes receive additional £lO, but other staff members receive nothing additional). The extra payment for night staffs remains substantially as at present. The salary increments for pupil nurses will be £lO. In other examples quoted the increment will be £2O.