Whangarei.

THE COLLECTIVE employment agreement at Healthcare Management Ltd has been settled, with an extra sick leave day and two lump sum payments. The term is for seven months. Management is now working through funding issues.

Pururi Court, Whangarei: Members are unhappy about an offer made to them recently. However, one piece of good news is that management at both Healthcare Management and Pururi Court have agreed to reintroduce an enrolled nurse pay scale ranging from $13 to $14.50.

Hokianga Health: Members have settled for a seven-month term, with a $300 lump sum and an agreement to renegotiate next May. Any pay rise agreed at that point will be backdated to February 2004. Funding for Hokianga Health is now sent to the Northland District Health Board (DHB), rather than to the local trust and the two bodies are still in negotiations.

The Northland DHB has made a good offer to anaesthetic technicians but we are on hold as the Bay of Plenty DHB sorts out some anomalies in the offer made to their technicians. This will affect the Northland offer.

Management is discussing exiting from its day centre, aged-care service.

Chief executive Karen McPeake met nursing staff and me recently to discuss a proposal for the development of a nursing leadership council, with a service manager taking on the role of director of nursing (DON) in the meantime. Our former director of nursing and midwifery Karen Doyle was made redundant in February and, when the position was advertised, no-one applied. At the meeting, we strongly expressed our wish for a separate role for the DON rather than a shared role; our concern about a manager taking on the acting role [no reflection against the person concerned] because of the conflicts of interest; and our strong sense that nominations for the nursing leadership council must come from the floor and not be people shoulder-tapped by charge nurses. We want to see the leadership council work towards the development of clear parametres for the DON role, which will be used as soon as possible in re-advertising the position. Now would seem to be the time to develop a national understanding of the DON role and for NZNO to support that role, instead of seeing DONs resigning from their positions across the nation.