No Artificial Sweeteners

At long last there seems to have been an outbreak of common sense - in the long-running 'rest breaks' dispute which has bedevilled the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) for years.

In recent months the SAS has been responding to trade union demands to throw more and more money at the problem - by offering big lump sum buy-outs and one-off payments - for SAS staff to interrupt their rest breaks.

Yet all of a sudden the Scottish Government has come up with a novel solution - by rejecting the concept of artificial sweeteners - to help reach a deal with the trade unions.

The trade union campaign was based existing ambulance staff being paid an extra £2,200 a  year each - around £5.5 million on the annual pay bill - which would have meant a continuation of the 40 hour week.    

But instead the additional funds will now be diverted away from these highly questionable top-up payments  to existing staff - and invested directly in the service itself.

Which means recruiting another 150 ambulance personnel - and all staff working a 37.5 hour week including rest breaks.

In future staff will be required to respond to all emergency 999 calls - including those that come in during their rest breaks.

After months and years of haggling over the issue - which has focused largely on demands for more money - the dispute has finally been resolved.

Even though it will take some time to introduce the 37.5 hour week - across the whole country.

In the meantime - and only until the new arrangements come into effect - ambulance staff will be paid an extra £150 a month for working through their scheduled rest breaks - when required to do so.

The extra cost will be around £5 million a year - but in the end no individual will gain financially - just for responding to a 999 call.

Which is as it should be.

I can see the hand of Scotland feisty health secretary - Nicola Sturgeon - at work here.

I suspect the Glasgow MSP helped bang heads together to completely change the direction of the debate - which seems to have been the key to achieving a workable settlement.

The task now is to ensure that the SAS delivers what has actually been agreed - after grappling with the problem unsuccessfully for several long years.