The deal agreed on Monday increases Te Whatu Ora nurses' pay by at least $6000 a year. Photo: 123RF
Family doctors and a primary care nurse representative fear the new pay deal for hospital nurses will make it even harder for them to get staff.
The deal agreed on Monday increases Te Whatu Ora nurses' pay by at least $6000 a year and lifts the top of the pay scale for most to nearly $107,000.
College of General Practitioners president Dr Samantha Murton said nurses in the primary sector were already behind their hospital colleagues in terms of salary.
"The fact that the gap has widened again is extraordinarily distressing and we are struggling to keep our nurses already.
"Many practices and services around the country are regularly losing nurses to te Whatu Ora services."
Murton said urgent action was needed to bolster the primary care nursing workforce who were critical to keeping people out of hospital.
Last month Christchurch's 24 Hour Surgery was forced to close overnight because staff shortages made it "clinically unsafe" to accept new patients.
Primary care nurse Denise Moore, another NZNO delegate, said even with a pay bump earlier this year, general practice nurses were at least 5 percent behind their hospital colleagues - and that gap just widened.
"Nurses are leaving and going back to either Te Whatu Ora or Australia. And what's going to happen is some of the smaller GP practices may even close."
Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said the government had put $200 million this year into pay rises for nurses in general practice and aged residential care, on top of their other pay increases.
But she conceded every new settlement affected relativity for everyone else.
"Hospital nurses' salaries are not going to be frozen in time, so of course pay parity is never achieved once and for all, set and forget.
"So it does mean you have to realise it progressively over time."
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told Morning Report that in principle, nurses who do not work for Te Whatu Ora should be paid as much as their hospital equivalents, but [primary care practices were responsible for employing staff and the government does not make the decision on their pay.
Health workforce pressure
The government said under Labour, nurses' pay has increased nearly 60 percent in six years.
However, the Nurses Organisation said a large minority of its members voted to reject the offer, on the grounds it did not keep up with inflation nor fix unsafe staffing levels.
Whanganui Hospital nurse Carmel, a union delegate, said it was "a bit rich" of the government to claim nurses' pay had gone up $40,000 in six years.
"They are lumping in the pay equity settlement [designed to compensate nurses for decades of falling pay rates from sex-based discrimination] with the collective agreement.
"So it's not really the full story."
The most pressing worry for her and her colleagues was staffing gaps.
It was not uncommon for one nurse to suddenly end up in sole charge of up to 12 patients with varying degrees of acuity, she said.
"So you've got people going home exhausted, at the end of their tether. It's affecting their family lives. And they've got to come back and do it again the next day."
Verrall said the deal was "a good step" towards relieving pressure on the health workforce.
As part of the agreement, Te Whatu Ora would be working with nurses to agree on what constituted safe staffing levels on a case-by-case basis, she said.
Nurses Organisation chief executive Paul Goulter said nurses with the same qualifications and responsiblities deserved the same pay, no matter where they worked.
"I just don't think it's sustainable to run our front-line, our primary health, on the basis of grace and favour handouts from the Government. We need a sustainable funding system."
Until Monday's vote by members of the Nurses Organisation, hospitals were bracing for a 24-hour strike and had cancelled about 1000 operations.
The cancellation of Wednesday's strike may come too late for some patients, who cannot be rescheduled in time.
Te Whatu Ora said it was trying to reinstate as many planned procedures as possible but could not confirm numbers.