Scotland West District Member's Report for Guild Council Meeting 5.4.2001



Glasgow & West of Scotland Group Meetings
There will have been two group meetings held since the last report. The first being an excellent presentation on the structure and work of the Health Technologies Board of Scotland by Dorothy Anderson (right) and the second being the Annual General Meeting and debate on the motion "this house believes that hospital pharmacy will survive the next decade". The result of the debate may be announced at Council.
Dorothy Anderson

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Organisational Changes
Alistair Thorburn has volunteered to be the Guild rep on the Lanarkshire Area Pharmaceutical Committee.

The new Hairmyres Hospital opens on 31st March.

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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.

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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.

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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.

·   New NHS Boards to be operational by 30.9.01
·   Performance and accountability framework in place by 30.9.01
·   Changes to financial arrangements in 2 stages - in April 2001 and from April 2002.

This timetable is set and inflexible since April 2002 is only one year before the next Scottish Parliamentary elections.

Unified Health Board Purpose

·   efficient, effective and accountable for the governance of the local NHS system
·   strategic leadership and direction

Overall Objectives

·   improve health of local people
·   improve health services for local people
·   focus on health outcomes

It is likely, though, that the 15 unified Health Boards will be reduced in number at some point in the next 4-5 years.

Membership of Boards: The non-executive members of the new Health Boards will be

·   Chairs of NHS Board and Trusts
·   Employee director
·   Local Authority member(s)
·   University medical school member (if any)
·   up to two additional non-executives

The employee director is intended to be a member of staff. There will be one per NHS Board area and the post is open to all employees within that Board area. The plan is for the local partnership forum to put forward two to three nominations and the appointment is then made by the Minister. Ideally, it should be someone with good partnership credentials.

There was a lot of discussion around the function of this post and whether it was possible for the holder to remain a member of the partnership forum or an accredited rep. The employee director is not directly representing staff and cannot be mandated by the partnership forum. The SNHSC members had problems with the concept of having to drop all trade union activities and there was a lot of discussion about this.

Performance Management framework: The Partnership forum will review how well the Board is working. The political agenda is known, it is known what partnership is, but it is happening at different speeds or not happening at all. Why? Why are some things prioritised and others placed on the back burner? Chief Executives know the topics on which they will be assessed and concentrate on them, often to the detriment of everything else. The Staff Governance framework should be out by October and will become part of their assessment. Then things should change.

Longer term: A review process is to be established to cover

·   numbers of health organisations
·   configuration of Boards and Trusts
·   scope for integration with Local Authorities and others
·   future style and shape of NHS management
·   any legislation changes required

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Continuing Development Guideline Development Group
I attended the last meeting of the development group which looks likely to produce a very useful users manual on continuing development.

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Advice and questions
Advice has been given on regrading and payment on account. Many trusts within Scotland successfully obtained payment on account for the 3.25% increase on basic salary.

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Meeting of Scottish Council Members with Michael Fuller
A meeting was held on 26th March of Michael Fuller, Don Page and myself to discuss a wide range of issues and topics related to pharmacy, the Guild and MSF in Scotland. Jim Bannerman was, unfortunately, not able to attend at the last minute.

An appointment to the post of HR Director for NHS Scotland is due to be made on April 17th. The post has been vacant since Gerry Marr took up his new post within the Health Department.

The Scottish Partnership Forum are to consider setting up a group to look at standardisation of terms and conditions over Scotland.

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Group News
I have been informed of several new members and processed several others as Membership Secretary for the Group. I have also processed a number of address changes (and some name changes) as a result of the merger ballot papers mailing not reaching members.

We still have a vacancy for Vice-chairman of the Group. If anyone is interested in finding out what is involved, please contact a member of the Group Committee, preferably before the Annual General Meeting.

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Submissions
I submitted information to the National Pharmaceutical Forum on how the Guild sees pharmacy progressing in Scotland. The submission was based upon the document submitted to the Scottish Executive Health Department prior to publication of 'Our National Health' and can be accessed here. This should have been considered along with submissions from other pharmacy organisations at the first meeting of the NPF on 7th March. However, the Guild was the only organisation to meet the deadline, so considerations were postponed until the next meeting in April.

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MSF Communications
I have been asked by Michael Fuller to assist with a membership mapping exercise similar to that carried out for the labs recently. I circulated all reps within the West of Scotland with a form to tell me how many pharmacists and technicians were members of MSF, non members or members of another union. I asked Jim and Don to circulate the form in the north and east. I have most of the Scotland West figures and a couple of sets from the rest of Scotland.

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Better communications with the Association of Scottish Trust Chief Pharmacists
Further to discussions at Council in November, I wrote in December to the Chair of ASTCP with the suggestions proposed by Council. I have yet to receive a reply to that letter, but the Guild has been invited to the Annual General Meeting of ASTCP on 30th April.

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Other Meetings
I was invited to the RCN Scotland Inaugural Annual Lecture 2001 but was unable to attend due to other commitments. When responding to the invitation I pointed out that the last week in March was not the best time to ensure a good attendance at such an event.

I have also been invited to attend a conference on 16th May entitled "New Medicines - Efficacy, Effectiveness & Efficiency". The intention of the conference is to outline the work of the new Consortium of Scottish Drugs & Therapeutics Committees and indicate how it links with other key players in this area.

Colin Rodden
26 March 2001

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