Scotland West District Member's Report from Guild Council Meeting 15.6.2000



The meeting began with the President welcoming the new district members for Northern Ireland, Tracey Boyce, and Northern, David Miller.

Meeting with Lord Hunt
On Monday, Gerry Looker, Ron Pate, Helen Remington and Roger Kline met with Lord Hunt, Minister for Health. Helen has produced a brief outline of the issues discussed. There will be a new National Plan for the NHS produced in July under the auspices of the Modernisation Project. Opportunities for pharmacists to contribute to the Government's agenda were discussed. 28 day discharge supply or one-stop dispensing were two of the issues. The latter is where a 28 day supply is issued for the patient on admission. The former scheme is working in Peterborough, where 4 Primary Care Groups are signed up to the 28 day supply on discharge. the hospital calculated that it would cost an extra £4k over the current cost of £126k, but it would save £310k. Lord Hunt has been invited to visit the pharmacy in Peterborough Hospital. It was pointed out that the needs of psychiatric patients, where a 28 day supply would be totally inappropriate, need to be considered. There was discussion about pharmacist prescribing and it was made clear that none of these schemes could happen unless the service is able to recruit and retain staff.
Lord Hunt asked about the Guild's relationship with RPSGB and the number of GHP members. The subject of generic drugs came up and it was pointed out that a fixed price in the community might mean an increased price in hospital. There were also problems with companies pulling out of the generic market.
The situation at the Department of Health was discussed. It is now over a year since the retiral of the Chief Pharmacist, but no appointment has been made. The impression given was that the Department of Health think they have a solution. However, it has previously been rumoured that this may involve a part-time appointment. The President has written to say that the post needs to be full-time.
There was no rejection of a suggestion by the Guild that an interim agreement on issues surrounding recruitment and retention should be considered to address immediate problems which may be solved in the future by Agenda For Change (AFC). Instead, he listened to the arguments and understood what was being said. He wanted to enquire further and to consider his position, so he was unable to give an immediate answer. However, the feeling of the GHP delegation was that the points had been taken on board. Part of his consideration is a wish not to destabilise anything in AFC. He did express a wish to meet again, and also to attend the National Weekend School. It has been suggested that he be invited to open the 2001 School in Harrogate.
Two key considerations came out of this meeting:

Pay
Some of the components of last years deal had been successful, but there were some problems in the way the award was structured. Pharmaceutical Whitley Council (PWC) has tried to address them in this years claim. The claim and the offer from management side must have crossed in the post, because the offer was made the day after the claim was posted. A draft advance letter was received with an offer of 3.25% and an attachment on study leave which had removed the footnote about the RPSGB 30 hours CPD requirement. This is part of the three-year deal which the majority of groups were forced to accept. However, the 1999 pay deal was agreed before the existence of the three-year deal, and so it was never tabled at PWC. Staff side is considering its position and is to request a meeting with management to explore these issues, AFC and the components of last years award which need discussion at a joint meeting. However, at the moment, there does not appear to be a management side to discuss things with. The Head of NHS Pay, Aileen Simkins, has changed job and most of the others appear to be off sick! Minutes of meetings have not been agreed for a couple of years.

Agenda For Change
Ron Pate gave some background on AFC and its history. It had been scheduled to be finished by July 21st. At a meeting the previous day, the results of the job evaluation scheme testing showed that changes will need to be made with regard to factors, weighting etc. Further testing of about 400 jobs needs to be done on an agreed basis and selection and then evaluated. The completion date is now October, and therefore all the other groups have stopped all meetings until the job evaluation has been completed. MSF have some major concerns over the process, and about outside, possibly ministerial, agendas being involved, resulting in attempts to slip things through without everyone understanding the significance of them. Gerry Looker is on the terms and conditions group looking at harmonisation. There was a suggestion of taking things forward on a 24/7 basis, i.e. all hours and days are equivalent. MSF ruled this out, but, interestingly, management side ruled it out too. So there is definitely an outside influence at work. There was a very acrimonious meeting of staff side, and another meeting will discuss the process and the role of the Chair and Secretary of staff side and their relationship with the Department of Health and management.
There are concerns around the pay progression issue, which is looking more and more like performance related pay. What is not wanted is a situation like that surrounding the nurses discretionary points where a white nurse had a three times better chance than a black nurse of being successful. Some test cases on this are going to court.
There will be a resultant delay in the statement on Pay Review Body status. However, Roger Kline is of the opinion that "pharmacists should assume they are in the extended PRB".
It is thought that the proposed implementation deadline of April 2001 might slip. If it takes 2-3 years to implement, then there are likely to be a lot of equal pay claims or staff movement to trusts who have implemented AFC.

  • There has been no progress on alternatives to increments
  • There have been no discussions on what harmonisation might look like
  • There have been no discussions on pay protection (likely to be a section 47 replacement)
  • There have been no discussions on market forces and retention difficulties
There was some discussion on how the pharmacist job evaluation was proceeding. Issues of pay protection for people nearing retirement have to be considered. It was pointed out that AFC affects everyone, not just those people on Whitley Council terms and conditions. MSF, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, the Society of Radiographers and the Royal College of Midwives are to jointly produce a guide book on implementing AFC.
It will be vital to have a good accredited rep network so that information is available and people are involved in what is happening within their local trust. It is essential to ensure that pharmacists do not lose out by not being represented on the AFC implementation. There will also be a need to monitor and check the implementation.

On-call
One problem with the 1999 pay award was the removal of EDC from the pay spine. A number of centres have historically used this to make posts more attractive. There was discussion on issues other than vacancies which deplete on-call rotas. In Leeds, one trust pays everyone one scale point for being on-call, puts the remainder into a pot and has worked out an hourly rate for on-call. Addenbrookes have a very complicated system which also includes a vacancy factor. It was agreed that if the frequency of on-call was increased, this was a change to the pharmacists terms and conditions, even if only on a temporary basis, and should be rewarded. Failure to do so should either be taken forward as a grievance, or the on-call periods rostered for vacant posts should not be covered. Custom and practice of the rota being in existence for some time would mean that such a grievance is very likely to be succesful. OTC is considering the whole EDC situation and this is one part of those discussions. One suggestion for future discussions was an hourly rate for being on-call with a higher rate for when actually called, but there was concern that management would see this as too open-ended a agreement. On the subject of merging the on-call rotas for two hospitals, it was pointed out that in addition to being unsure of specialities in the second hospital, how can someone cover a call at a second hospital if dealing with a call at the first?

Working Time Directive (WTD)
This has an impact on both extended hours and on-call as explained in the article in 'ghp'. 1 in 5 based residency schemes are no longer acceptable. 1 in 8 is required to provide holiday cover, and therefore extra resources are necessary if departments are to meet their obligations under the WTD. Some hospitals have used this argument to get extra posts.There are also problems with the NHS interpretation of the WTD. One delegate at the Group Secretaries Meeting had thoroughly recommended the MSF guide on the WTD - it left him knowing more than management during discussions. Management actually asked if they could have a copy! Implementation dates were discussed. One opinion was that it was partly down to a Chief Pharmacist deciding that what was happening was too risky and stopping. It is a Health and Safety matter and therefore needs to be monitored to ensure that staff don't break the rules through duty swapping etc.

'ghp'
Delegates to the Group Secretaries Meeting were asked to encourage members to write letters or articles for the journal or for the sounding board section within it. The editorial board would also like suggestions for future articles. A couple of distribution problems were highlighted. If a member gets MSFworks, but not 'ghp', it could be that their membership record has the wrong job code. If there are any problems within the West of Scotland, contact me.

National website - www.ghp.org.uk
There was discussion on what members would like to see on the national website. If anyone has a question that they are frequently asked, it could be put on a 'frequently asked questions' page. Policies and statements are to be put on the site, as are approved minutes of Council meetings.

Recruitment
Organisation, Terms and Conditions Committee (OTC) are to get an audit of progress on the recruitment strategy. It was agreed at the last OTC meeting to mail out a "recruit-a-friend" type flier to members, and there will also be something in the Pharmaceutical Journal.
There was some discussion on the report produced by David Scott in Oxford, looking at vacancies over the 8/98-7/99 period. There were 637 wte vacancies (14.7%) with only 400 pharmacists currently being trained. 50% of hospitals have had to reduce services or refuse to introduce new services due to staff shortages. There are also 294 technician vacancies. In the summary to the Department of Health, it states that it is clear there is a marked shortage of pharmacy personnel at all levels.

6 month Progress Report on GDM Motions
There was some discussion on why this report was not available, but it is to be sent to Group Secretaries as soon as it is available. The new Group Secretary's Handbook (or Red Book as it is commonly known) is to exclude policies and position papers. Both will appear separately and on the national website. There was some discussion at Council on the best way to keep paper copies up to date. Members are asked to comment on the list of papers and let Council know what they think is missing. Suggestions on the day included

  • requirements for additional qualifications
  • responsibilities and best practice in the supply chain
  • Any other suggestions should be sent to Colin Rodden
It was thought that some of the other suggestions should actually be incorporated into a study day, to be run in conjunction with MSF technicians and perhaps the Association of Pharmacy Technicians. These included
  • Role of technicians in drug information
  • Role of technicians in ward services
  • Skill mix
  • Position on regulation and registration of technicians
  • Capacity planning and management and safe limits of work
  • Role of clinical technicians

Further discussion on the suggestion is required.

Group Delegates Meeting
It was proposed that this years GDM should include several discussion forums to discuss policy. As yet, there have been no suggestions on topics. If you have any thoughts, please contact me.

Guild Administration
A draft service level agreement was tabled at Council on what was required from an administrator of the Guild. Head Office have been asked to similarly specify what is required from Council members. The draft was agreed with some amendments.

AAH Proposal
AAH have proposed to give the Guild £2000 for fundamental research on the current and future needs of Guild members. There was some discussion at the Group Secretaries Meeting on whether that meant from the Guild as members, or from AAH as customers. The President, Vice-President and Professional Secretary met with AAH prior to Council, and it was agreed that the Vice-president should compile some background information to allow AAH to put a full proposal together.
Some possible questions -

  • what do non-member want to make them join?
  • are we hitting the mark with the weekend school?
  • what do people want from the weekend school?
Comments and other suggestions on questions to Colin as soon as possible.

Europharm Forum
The Professional Secretary has been contacted by the above group (part of the World Health Organisation). They are carrying out a project on the role of pharmacists in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. They want to get examples of projects being carried out and the work pharmacists are currently doing.

Values
The paper on values which has stirred up such a debate in the PJ letters column is available from the RPSGB website. It was also suggested that Nick Barber speak at the Day Conference.

AEEU merger
There was a special NEC meeting last Saturday. It has been decided to carry out an opinion poll of members on their views of the merger. A special conference later this year would then discuss an amended instrument of amalgamation. If it is agreed, then the membership would be balloted. The difference between an opinion poll and a ballot is that the results of the opinion poll can be ignored!

Honorary Membership
It was agreed at Council that Honorary Membership of the Guild be conferred on Dr Gerard Lee. Ged is a previous Vice-president of the Guild and now works for the MCA.

Colin Rodden
15.6.00