Nurses drop overtime ban

Normal patient services will resume at Christchurch's Princess Margaret and Hillmorton hospitals after health unions withdrew their ban on overtime.

Eleven hundred nurses and allied health staff at the hospitals have been refusing to work overtime or outside their normal rostered area for the past month in protest at the lack of progress on pay talks.

The Canterbury District Health Board chief operating officer, Bill McDonald, said the decision meant normal health care services could resume.

New Zealand Nurses Organisation organiser Chris Wilson said the withdrawal of the bans was a gesture of good faith before pay talks resume on September 28.