THE Health Department will test the Housing minister’s promises that more flexibility should be given when granting housing licences to nurses. Health minister Peter Roffey welcomed comments that Deputy Dave Jones had made to the media and privately to members of a nursing union.

‘However, we are confused because we have heard nothing officially and there seems to be a gulf between the rhetoric and the reality,’ he said.

‘In fact, if anything, the licensing regime appears to be as tough, or tougher now, than it was a few years ago.’

Deputy Roffey said he could understand why Housing might want to take a strong line for population control reasons, but it was only reasonable for it then to stand by those actions in public.

‘For the Housing minister to publicly preach flexibility for nurses if he then can’t deliver on it is simply to raise expectations which will later be dashed.’

The housing laws have recently been subject to heavy criticism from the Royal College of Nursing and other health professionals.

Deputy Roffey said that Health had always shown restraint in the number of 15-year licences it requested because it did not want to overburden Housing with requests which stood little or no chance of success.

‘However, we feel the need to test out the new flexibility that Deputy Jones is talking about.’

Health now plans to seek several long-term licences for key jobs where continuity would be a key advantage to the service, although these would be for jobs that would not normally carry a 15-year licence.

Deputy Roffey said his department would not be going over the top and would continue to show restraint, but it wanted to test Deputy Jones’ ‘new flexibility’.

He said other departments, such as Education, would be watching with interest.

Health had now requested a meeting with the whole Housing board to establish what was official policy or whether it was simply a matter of Deputy Jones ‘shooting from the hip’.

An increase in the number of 15-year licences would be of great benefit to the health service, said Deputy Roffey. If, on the other hand, the applications were refused, at least health staff and their representatives would be able to see that it was housing policy itself which prevents nurses and other key staff from staying in the island and not an overzealous interpretation of it by Health.

Deputy Jones said the views were his own and not necessarily shared by Housing members.