Scotland West District Member's Report for Guild Council Meeting 14.6.2001



Glasgow & West of Scotland Group Meetings
There will have been two group meetings held since the last report. The first being the Annual General Meeting of the Group with an excellent debate entitled "Will hospital pharmacy survive the next decade" and the second being a rescheduled Annual General Meeting as the first was inquorate. The debaters were four Trust Chief Pharmacists, Margaret Dolan, George Downie, Michael Pratt and Vince Summers. Due to illness I was unable to attend, but the meeting was attended by a reporter from Scottish Chemist Review who published an article and photographs of the meeting.
If the rescheduled AGM is inquorate, serious discussions will need to take place on the future of the Group, if it is to continue.

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Organisational Changes
I have resigned as GHP rep for West Glasgow in the North Glasgow Hospitals Trust. Nominations for a replacement have been sought, but at the time of writing, no volunteer has been identified.

The new Wishaw Hospital opened on 29th May 2001.

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Staffing
Ayrshire & Arran Acute Trust has just advertised for a grade E (Macmillan Pharmacist). North Glasgow Hospitals have advertised for a Grade D Pharmacist for Stobhill Hospital, four Grade C posts for Glasgow Royal Infirmary and two Grade C posts for Gartnavel General Hospital. Elsewhere, several problems with obtaining staff or locum cover have been reported as have problems with plummeting morale.

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Strategy for Pharmaceutical Care Reference Group
The Group held an open forum on 15th May for a wider group of organisations than those actually represented on the Group. The meeting was very useful and a report is available here.

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Scottish NHS Committee (SNHSC) Meeting 23.5.2001

NHS National Advisory Committee: There is to be a special meeting of the NHS NAC to consider representation for Scotland. The arguments will be that it should be a dual approach since pay and conditions are agreed at UK level but require ratification by the Scottish Executive. It is slightly different from Wales and Northern Ireland. There are also a couple of other considerations -
1. The Labour Party manifesto includes a different approach to private finance from Scotland. First Minister, Henry McLeish, has stated that it will not be introduced north of the border. It is likely that within 2-3 years there will be substantial differences between the health services north and south of the border.
2. SEHD are considering a separate Scottish pay system by 2003. This is not policy for any union or professional body and raises issues around Pay Review Bodies. Whitley Council functionality could easily be replicated at regional or national level, but the same cannot be said for PRBs. The combined effect of the General Election and the next elections for the Scottish Parliament will give a sharper edge to the devolution debates, and there is a need to consider the long term implications of the Scottish Government.

Health Conference: There were suggestions on putting forward an NAC motion on changing the powers of MSF in Scotland to decide the way forward for health service members in Scotland. Autonomy is required to react to Scottish issues, but it is also necessary to have unity with the rest of the union. It was pointed out that there is a degree of autonomy under the auspices of industrial autonomy. If things only apply to Scotland, then industrial autonomy applies. It is not UDI.
Rather than an emergency motion, it was decided to produce a leaflet for distribution to delegates to the NAC. It was thought better to consider the discussions in an around the conference and use the leaflet to inform. The leaflet can be found here.
It was agreed that the Committee writes to Roger Spiller to suggest changing the format of the Health Conference to include a formal agenda.

NHSNAC elections: There was a workshop on possible changes to the election of representatives to the NHS NAC and OACs. It was agreed that position papers on the options considered should be prepared and presented to the next meeting for a decision.

Scottish Executive Group (SEG) report: The Chair of the SNHSC is to make a presentation to the MSF Scottish Regional Council on the work of the committee and on MSF in the health service in general.

Michael Fuller: Mike Fuller reported that there has been a reorganisation of portfolios between Regional Officers. Fiona Farmer and Hugh Scullion will be full Regional Officers from 1.7.01. This brings the RO complement up to 5 from 3. The new arrangements for the NHS are as follows -
Gordon Casey - Forth Valley, Argyll & Clyde
Fiona Farmer - Highlands, Grampian, Tayside, Orkney, Shetland, Western Isles
Mike Fuller - Glasgow, Ayrshire & Arran, Dumfries & Galloway
Ian Fulton - Lothian, CSA
Hugh Scullion - Fife, Borders, Lanarkshire
The ROs are under pressure under 'Organising Works' to increase the numbers of members and reps. There is apparently 1 rep for every 14 members in Scotland. It was noted that Anna Daley is now a full time professional officer for CPHVA and the CPNA have created a part time officer post. MSF is actively looking to see how membership within LHCCs can be developed.

AEEU Merger: Nothing really has happened. There is nothing to stop local groups inviting AEEU reps along to their meetings or having joint MSF/AEEU meetings.

Pay and Agenda for Change: Everything appears to be going to timetable with the document due to be published in August. There will then be a 3-month consultation period. Towards the end of that period members will be balloted on the proposals. SPRIG is to meet on 15th June to consider the mechanics of implementation. There are two main issues
1. Will Scotland go as a whole? Most unions are in favour of being early implementers.
2. The date of implementation - 4/2002. There is a problem with the capacity within the service. There are not enough HR and payroll managers and they have been asked to quantify the additional resources required.
It was noted that England and Wales have allowed 18 months for implementation.
Job Evaluation is going well and a ranking order should be produced in June/July.
The Harmonisation debate has not started. It is being held back by the RCN and Unison. This is likely to be the most contentious part of AFC, and it is hoped to keep a Scottish-wide approach to this issue.
Competency based pay - management side cannot agree amongst themselves how to approach this issue, never mind agree it with staff side.
It was noted that AFC pay protection is likely to be less than currently available under Organisational Change in Scotland i.e. protection for life on ALL organisational change with any disputes referred to the Scottish Partnership Forum. Trusts have apparently not responded to SPF requests to quantify the costs of protection to the service. There are likely to be some heated debates on protection.

Partnership: SPF have visited Highland. Grampian is problematic with dates. Glasgow PCT and South Glasgow Trusts are to be visited individually.
Our National Health - This is proceeding on the basis of the working paper issued earlier this month and to be applied over the next few months. Unified Health Boards will start work on 1st October 2001 come what may. Interviews have taken place for the Chairs of the unified boards but an announcement is to be delayed until after the General Election. The staff side chair of the Area Partnership Forum (APF) is to be the Partnership Director (formerly the employee director (see dmr0104)). They will have secretarial and network support for communication, protected time and replacement cover. The SPF is to produce some advice on the composition of the APFs, making sure they are representative, ensuring proper links with Trust PFs and the unified board Staff Governance Sub-Committee and the process of appointing the APF chairs.
The Staff Governance Standard is likely to be out within the next 2-3 weeks for consultation and this will be very important. Under the Performance Assessment Framework, Chief Executives will be held responsible for how the Staff Governance Standard has been implemented within their trust. This is a major change to ensure that partnership is entrenched in all processes. Until now, there have been only two statutory requirements, that the books balance (Financial Governance) and Clinical Governance. Staff Governance will now be the third. Effectively a 'reverse appraisal' system, it will determine the Chief Executives salary and the amount of capital investment in the trust. A supporting document will detail the evidence required to support the framework.

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Continuing Development Guideline Development Group
I attended the last meeting of the development group which considered the report of the researchers. It was announced that the full committee and the other similar groups are to be disbanded. However, an executive of the group will continue until the handbook is produced.
I had an interesting discussion after the meeting with one of the members who is in charge of a project to create a web site to access training for all professionals. The medical training part is fairly well advanced but they are looking for contacts in other professions. The site is due to go live later this year, and further information will be supplied when available. I feel this would be of interest to both Education and Science and the new IT special interest group.

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Advice and questions
Advice has been given on regrading and EDA negotiations. I have also solved a few membership related problems for members.

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Meeting of Scottish Secretary with Chief Pharmacist Bill Scott and Michael Fuller
A meeting has been arranged for June 4th to discuss matters of mutual interest.

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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.

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.

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MSF Communications
I am still waiting for a few responses to the survey on pharmacy membership of MSF.
RepsDirect no 114 was received recently and is available here

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Better communications with the Association of Scottish Trust Chief Pharmacists
I attended the Annual General Meeting of ASTCP on 30th April, and have been invited to attend their meeting on 8th June. Further information will be given at Council.

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Emergency Duty Allowance negotiations
I have communicated twice with SEHD to try and get a Scotland wide agreement on increasing the EDA for 2000/2001 in line with the basic salary increase. However, they are not willing to negotiate as the matter is still under discussion nationally. I am hoping that a meeting can be arranged with a representative of Scotlands HR directors to see if any progress can be made.
At least one rep has tried to open negotiations with their Trust, but others feel it is an issue which should be handled at national level.

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Other Meetings
I was invited to the ABPI Inaugural Annual Lecture 2001 but was unable to attend due to other commitments. I have been assured that I will be kept informed of future events.

Colin Rodden
30 May 2001

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