The Union Haddiema Maghqudin has suspended industrial action it ordered in the health sector after a meeting it had with the Energy and Health Ministry, The Malta Independent is informed.

The action started on Thursday after pending agreements on parking, salary scales and study leave had not been implemented.

But the union on Friday had what it described as a positive meeting with the ministry and, following this, it has withdrawn all industrial action.

The following are the issues discussed and agreed between the Ministry for Energy and Health and the Union Haddiema Maghqudin

• Accumulation of Vacation Leave - Vacation Leave for Allied Health Professionals can be transferred to the following year (maximum 192 hours; pro-rata for those on reduced hours). A memo is to be drafted and sent to UHM 12/06/2015;

• Study Leave in hours - HR is to revise the study leave policy to allow Allied Health Professionals to avail themselves of Study Leave entitlement in hours. A circular is to be drafted and sent to UHM 12/06/2015;

• IT access - a separate meeting is to be planned to discuss IT access issues – whether this is actual availability of computers or internet access. The relevant IT persons need to be present. - A bi-partite committee is to be set up to decide to execute a 6-month plan;

• Scale 5 -The Scale 5 Professional Lead Allied Health Practitioner (Physiotherapy) is to be reissued as per MoU since previous call did not include Public Sector immediately;

• Scale 6 - To issue as per agreement. If necessary, ifthere are no eligible applicants to reissue under next clause. Further to this it was agreed that the call for applications should be on a two-week expiration;

• Services Managers - Scale 5 -To re-issue call to fill various vacancies and both parties are to meet beginning next week to expand the number of Service Managers;

• Bereg - a risk assessment is required at Bereg. UHM agreed to start at those where Speech Language Pathologists provide a service. UHM stated this amounts to approximately 10. UHM will be commissioning and managing of the risk assessment process itself. Such risk assessments will be forwarded to the Ministry of Energy and Health once concluded;

• Service Manager versus Professional Lead - meeting is to be held with the

Professional Lead to emphasise their role as Professional Leads. Further dedicated meetings are to be held with UHM to discuss the job description and interpretation of the roles;

• Parking at Mater Dei - Durring the discussions the UHM was informed that plans are being carried out to acquire land to be used for parking. It was agreed that UHM will be continuing on with this discussion with a meeting with the respective Minister and Parliamentary Secretary themselves to solve the parking issues for the Allied Health Professionals;

• Scale 9 to Scale 8 - following competence assessment framework, it was agreed that these will be placed in Scale 8 on a notional basis according to the years of experience in the class e.g. Scale 9 plus 6 years experience - placed in Scale 8 step 7, etc

• Scale 9 to Scale 8 through competence assessment framework - backdating of Scale 8 to January 2015. This is pending PSC and financial approval;

• Request for backdating of Scale 8 - Selection Process underway. Backdating of Scale 8 (14th June 2014) has been agreed, pending approval from PSC;

• SOP Podiatry - re: request for apology. A board for investigation needs to be set up.