dmr0211

District Member's Report for Guild Council Meeting 28.11.2002

Glasgow & West of Scotland Group Meetings
Organisational Changes
Staffing
Advice and questions
Amicus Senior Reps meeting 9.10.02
Pharmaceutical Whitley Council Meeting 7.11.02

Glasgow & West of Scotland Group Meetings
Since the last Council meeting there have been two meetings of the group, both of which I attended. The first was a discussion on Agenda For Change and was addressed by Michael Fuller, Regional Officer. A report of the meeting is available here. The second was the joint meeting with the Glasgow branch of the RPSGB entitled "Ethical Dilemmas" and addressed by Professor Joy Wingfield of the University of Nottingham. A copy of the handout is available here.

Organisational Changes
A review of pharmacy in the Greater Glasgow Primary Care Trust is underway, but progress is slow.

Staffing
Inverclyde Royal Hospital has two C grade clinical pharmacist vacancies being advertised due to the current post holders gaining promotion. The Lanarkshire Acute Hospitals Trust’s new E grade Clinical pharmacy leader, emergency care services (Admissions med & surg, and A/E ward) post is still vacant. There will also be a C grade vacancy soon at Wishaw General. Hairmyres have a C grade vacancy and a new B grade and D grade posts. Two new staff members have been appointed in Lomond and Argyll PCT. The National Waiting Time Centre, formerly HCI, have been allowed to recruit 3 new members of staff due to increased workload: 1 pharmacist; 1 technician; 1 assistant.

Advice and questions
I have advised on acting, grading, salary and grievance questions and processed six membership applications.

Amicus-MSF Senior Reps Meeting 9.10.02

It was noted that the SEHD Strategic Change Unit has been relocated from St Andrews House to the Health Service Centre at the Western General in Edinburgh. They have also been renamed as the Centre for Change and Innovation.
Disappointment was registered at the lack of progress in implementing the PIN Guidelines in North Glasgow and some other Trusts. It was noted that their implementation would form part of the Governance Framework for next year.
Very little seems to be happening on the Amicus merger. It was suggested that this might continue to be the case until the new AEEU General Secretary took up post in January 2003.
Agenda for Change – There are two current concerns. The fact that the NAC meeting has been moved to January suggests further delays are possible. If there is further slippage, it will mean that implementation moved from April 2004 to October 2004 or even April 2005. It was noted that 15-20% of the membership in Scotland will not have been covered in the job evaluation exercise. The majority of these will be members of the Common Services Agency which is unique to Scotland. It was also reported that management had proposed that the changes for any winners out of the package should be phased in over 3 years. The impression was that this would not be necessary unless implementation was going to cost a considerable amount of money. It was noted that the job ranking order will only show staff how their jobs compare with others. Whether staff are winners or losers depends what salary is attached to their point on the pay scale.

Pharmaceutical Whitley Council Meeting 7.11.02
I attended the above meeting and have circulated a report on the ghpscot-announce mailing list to GHP members. If you did not receive a copy of this report, join the mailing list. CLICK HERE and fill in the online form.

Colin Rodden
8 November 2002