.
The new Hairmyres Hospital opens on 31st March.
Staffing
Money has been released in Argyll and Clyde Acute Trust to appoint several new posts as a result of the recent pharmacy review. These posts will be subject to internal applications in the first instance.
Strategy for Pharmaceutical Care Reference Group
Due to ill-health, I was unable to attend the inaugural meeting of this group, formed to produce the Pharmacy Strategy for NHS Scotland (the new name for NHSiS). However, Don Page was able to attend and produced a report of the meeting. Don is willing to attend future meetings of this group as Guild representative if this is acceptable to Council. As most of the meetings are in Edinburgh, it would certainly be of benefit to me if that was the case.
Scottish NHS Committee (SNHSC) Meeting 21.3.2001
SPRIG: There has been discussion at SPRIG that the whole of Scotland should be early implementers of Agenda For Change (AFC), but there has been no formal decision. It was decided to see if there was sufficient capacity in the system to roll out the proposals in April 2002, assuming the release of AFC in August 2001. Every HR director has been asked what resources they need to get the whole package up and running between August 2001 and the end of March 2002. If the timetable slips then it will be October 2002 or, at the latest, April 2003.
The Organisational Change Policy should be extended later in the week from 31.3.01 although there is opposition to this from management side of the Scottish Partnership Forum (SPF). The problem is not about no compulsory redundancies, but the lifelong protection of pay and conditions. The proposal would be for a 6-month extension, but it is hoped to extend it until AFC is implemented. Another proposal would be to set up a research sub group to attempt to predict the cost to the service of extending the lifelong protection agreement further.
NHSNAC elections: There were major discussions over the elections for the NHS National Advisory Committee (NHSNAC) representative for Scotland, with suggestions that it might be time to revisit the election process. Committee members were asked to consider possible ways of changing the process over the next couple of months before a discussion at the next meeting. There are questions over accountability and ensuring maximum membership involvement whilst avoiding any duplication of votes. Possibilities include
· entire process carried out by Scottish NHS Committee (SNHSC) or
· by workplace groups or professional groups.
If the latter option were to be used, it would be necessary to ensure that workplace and professional groups actually met. I would welcome comments from all reps on this matter.
There were also discussions on the composition of the NHSNAC Executive. It was decided that SNHSC should write to the NHSNAC Executive expressing in strong terms the necessity of having a Scottish representative on it. Although many things were devolved, some things were still decided at a UK level, and it was important that decisions made at UK level were not detrimental to agreements made in Scotland.
Scottish Executive Group (SEG) report: The SEG has met twice since the last SNHSC meeting. A report from SEG to the Scottish Regional Council was distributed to SNHSC members. Detailing the role and remit of the SNHSC, it is available on www.ghpscot.org.uk. The next report to Regional Council will be based upon 'Our National Health' and it was agreed to write to them with a view to doing a presentation to the meeting on that subject.
There have also been discussions with National Secretary John Wall. It was pointed out that the NHS comprises one quarter of MSF membership in Scotland but gets nowhere near one quarter of the resources.
MSF/AEEU merger: I have asked all accredited reps and contacts to check with members that they have received ballot papers on the merger. I have arranged for several members to receive ballot papers where they had not been sent to the correct home addresses. If any member has not received ballot papers, the telephone number to call is 020 7505 3169.
It was announced that Roger Spiller as taken over as National Secretary of the NHS section on an interim basis. Roger Kline has apparently accepted a package and resigned.
'Our National Health': One of the first documents to be released will be on rebuilding the NHS and it is expected in April. It will set out a timetable.
This timetable is set and inflexible since April 2002 is only one year before the next Scottish Parliamentary elections.