Jersey hospital brings in locums for night pathology service
Scientists have been brought in to run the out-of-hours pathology service at Jersey's hospital after a pay dispute.
The Jersey health department says it is trying to modernise the service and part of that involves out of hours pay.
A review found while the pathology service was accurate, it was also slow, old-fashioned and expensive.
As a result the health department has hired an expert to bring it up to date. The changes include bringing overtime pay for biomedical staff down.
A Jersey hospital spokesman said the staff were getting significantly more than their UK and Guernsey counterparts.
The 18 staff rejected the new offer and so the health department said it had no choice but to bring in temporary scientists from the UK to run the out-of-hours service for at least three months.
They are being given local orientation training and the health department says patients will not experience any changes to the quality of the pathology service.