Fórsa will ballot health and social care professionals (HSCPs) for industrial action if the health department proceeds with the recruitment of a chief nursing officer (CNO) on the basis of the current job description, and prior to appointing a specific HSCP advisor to the department.

The CNO post, which is currently being advertised, would subsume all other health and social care professions under the authority of a chief nursing officer.

Speaking at a meeting of the union’s HSCP vocational groups in Dublin this week, Fórsa’s head of health, Éamonn Donnelly, said there was a “pressing need to ballot” in response to an attempt to “thoroughly diminish the autonomy and professional leadership of HSCPs.”

“The proposal marks a serious and unacceptable breach of trust by the department, and we have to take a stand. Fórsa will not allow independent health professions to become a subset of nursing, as they would under this proposal.

“Once again, the minister and his department have demonstrated their utter ignorance of how these vital and independent professions operate, not to mention their value to health service users and the entire health service,” he said.

The health and social care professions include assessment officers, dietitians, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists, social workers, social care professionals, speech and language therapists and others.

Writing to the department’s top official last week, Éamonn said the scope of the proposed CNO post was completely at odds with existing proposals for the creation of a HSCP advisory post to advocate for the professions and advise the department.

He said the post being advertised gives responsibility for the leadership of HSCP regulation and workforce development to the CNO, who would also be responsible for advising the department on health and social care issues.

The advertisement for the post adds that the department’s social care advisor would report to the CNO.

“HSCPs are autonomous disciplines and they must have their own reporting advisory and advocacy stream. The proposed CNO post would totally dilute this autonomy, and it’s simply not acceptable,” said Éamonn.

In his letter to the department, Éamonn said the model now proposed would also inhibit the development of policies set out in the Sláintecare programme, which would establish HSCPs as leaders in service delivery in integrated hospital and community healthcare settings.