Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Question 188: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children if more nurses' aids could be employed to release nurses from labour intensive duties; and if equal pay issues would arise in those circumstances where nurses' aids were doing work that nurses previously carried out. [7283/06]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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Nursing is a regulated profession. While health care assistants make a very valuable contribution to the care of patients, their position is quite different to that of the nurse and there is a clear distinction between the role of a nurse and a health care assistant. The assistants work under the supervision of nurses and midwives and a higher level qualification is required for employment as a nurse.

There are currently over 7,000 health care assistants, nurse attendants and nurses' aids employed in the public health service. It is likely that the number of health care assistants required in the public health service will rise over the next number of years as demand for services continues to increase. The introduction of health care assistants as part of care teams frees up nurses to concentrate on higher level tasks more appropriate to their education and training.

A national training programme for health care assistants was rolled out in 2003. In 2005 agreement was reached with the relevant parties on the inclusion of an additional module of training into the programme entitled activities of living patient care. This new module equips health care assistants with the skills to check and record the vital signs, that is, blood pressure, temperature and so forth, of patients in a variety of care settings. While health care assistants have been upskilled in recent years, their qualifications and training is not at the same level as that of nurses and midwives and it is not possible for an assistant to undertake the range of roles and duties appropriate to nursing grades. In these circumstances, therefore, equal pay issues do not arise.