Student and new graduate officer Dean Flanagan urges interns to get involved in the Preceptor of the Year Award

Preceptor of the Year Award Welcome back to all of you who are on your first placement and those of you who are doing your internship. Hopefully by now you have been assigned a tutor or preceptor. This is not an easy task for your colleagues to take on, especially in these times when wards are short-staffed and resources stretched.

In light of this, I would like to encourage students and internship students to nominate a preceptor who they feel goes above and beyond the call of duty to help support and guide you through your studies. Please send a short, informative piece, on who you think deserves this prize and why they should win.

Please keep an eye on the INMO website at www.inmo.ie for the online submission form or email: deanflanagan@inmo.ie for further information.

The prize for the Preceptor Award 2014 will be presented at the annual delegate conference in Kilkenny in May.

Pay issues
In previous articles I have spoken of the pay issues that have faced our newly-qualified nurses who are being paid under the minimum wage. Phil Ní Sheaghdha, INMO director of industrial relations, and I are waiting for the case to be heard by the Labour Relations Commission.

In the meantime, however, a circular dated December 20, 2013, from the Department of Health has confirmed the pay rate post-qualification and pre-registration as €23, 129.

However, the tasks carried out are still those of a trained healthcare assistant (HCA) and this figure is still below the HCA first point of scale.

Graduate placement programme
Since the last issue of WIN, more information has become available regarding the graduate scheme. However, there is still a lot of confusion about the scheme and I hope to address some of these issues.

Firstly, there will be no financial penalty incurred if an individual wishes to leave the scheme early. Participants can still apply for any staff nurse posts that become available. The 85% pay rate can only be offered along with a two-year contract of employment, and the six days required for the educational component will be paid study leave.

Finally, an individual can now register on the live website http://www.rcsi.ie/ if they have been offered and accepted a graduate nursing place.

I am still aware that some places are blatantly ignoring the terms of the scheme and offering short-term contracts etc on the 85% pay rate where the full 100% should be paid. Please contact me by email at deanflanagan@inmo.ie if you have been offered a position outside the graduate scheme but find that you are employed under the terms and conditions of the scheme.

Current recruitment
At present I am contacting the clinical placement co-ordinators in the various training facilities to organise visits to the current fouth-year internship students. I will provide updates on the locations I will be visiting through the INMO website and the Organisation’s Facebook page.

For anybody I may have missed to date, please remember that you can join online for free by visiting www.inmo.ie/membership

Annual delegate conference
Finally, I would urge all students and new graduates to be aware of the upcoming meetings of their local branch and section, youth forum AGMs, and also the upcoming INMO annual delegate conference, which will be held at the Newpark Hotel in Kilkenny in May.

Nominate yourself to be put forward to join us in the Marble City for this year’s ADC. At the event, your voice is very important in deciding and driving the direction of the INMO for the following year. Feel free to contact me (Tel: 01 6640600) if you would like information on your local INMO branch.

Student focus - Preceptors, pay and placements