THE PSYCHIATRIC NURSES Association (PNA) has suspended the industrial action it launched last week due to a dispute over staffing numbers.

It’s after the PNA said agreement had been reached with the HSE for it to conduct a review process that will set out the nursing numbers required to run mental health services.

The PNA had not set out an end-date for the industrial action it began last Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the PNA said the HSE has given an undertaking that the process will be completed no later than the end of the month.

The PNA had commenced industrial action last week in response to what it labelled the “continued failure of the HSE to exempt mental health services from proposed cuts in nursing numbers and unacceptable restrictions on recruitment”.

It pointed to the HSE’s pay and numbers strategy as being at the root of the sector’s ongoing issues.

This strategy states that the employment ceiling in the HSE would be capped at the December 2023 numbers.

PNA General Secretary Peter Hughes announced the suspension of the industrial action at the PNA Annual Delegate Conference in Westport, Co Mayo.

He said it remains the union’s position that the HSE’s Pay and Numbers Strategy has reduced staffing in mental health services to “unsustainable levels” and that service delivery and development has been impacted as a result.

“Our consistent position has been that the current level of staffing shortages has left services hugely reliant on overtime and agency to maintain basic services and is severely impacting on service development,” said Hughes.

“We will be closely monitoring the HSE review process that will now get underway to ensure that it fully captures the reality of the staffing vacancies in mental health services at all levels.”

On Sunday, several health unions that were due to begin ‘work-to-rule’ industrial action the following day made the decision to suspend the action after talks with the HSE. 

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, Forsa, Connect, Unite, and the Medical Laboratory Scientists Association were the unions involved. 

The PNA’s industrial action was separate to this and while it welcomed the wider health sector’s standing down following talks, it decided to continue with its industrial action.