THE Chief Minister’s department has come out fighting in the pay dispute with nurses to reject claims that nurses have been treated like second-class citizens in pay deals.

It says that nurses are well paid, and deputy chief executive Mick Pinel sent a letter to all States Members yesterday which also dismissed assertions from nursing unions that pay rates had fallen behind comparable groups. Nursing unions last month rejected a two-year pay deal accepted by many other States workers, complaining that they had not been treated fairly in recent years. But Mr Pinel produced figures to show that nurses at all grades received increases ‘significantly higher’ than other main pay groups over the five years from 2000 to 2005. His figures show that nurses received up to 42.5% compared with other pay groups who received about 21% during the five years. He said that the awards to nurses were significantly higher than the equivalent Jersey inflation rate over the period of 23%.