Scotland West District Member's Annual Report for Guild Council 1996/97


Group Meetings

Since the last annual report, there have been five group meetings.

Thursday 20th April 1996

The Group A.G.M. was reasonably well attended.
This was the last meeting in the 1995/96 session. There was discussion on the amendments to the constitution for the Group. These were accepted by the membership at the meeting, having been subject to a Group-wide consultation exercise over the previous couple of months. The Group Committee was elected at the meeting, and the office bearers appointed were -

Chairman

Scott Nicol

Vice-Chairman

Steve Bowhay

Secretary

Fiona MacFarlane

Treasurer

Mary McCarron

Publicity Officer

Paul Davies


The Group Committee met on May 18th to determine the syllabus for the 1996/97 session.

Thursday 7th September 1996

In a change to the normal sequence of events, the bowling night was held early in the session, instead of during the winter. In a repeat of past years, the winners were Stobhill Hospital, who keep the trophy, having won it three years in a row.

Thursday 3rd October 1996

This meeting explored future trends in Pharmacoeconomics and was addressed by Dr Peter Davey from Ninewells Hospital.

Thursday 14th November 1996

This was a joint meeting with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain on the subject of the treatment and management of stroke. The speaker was Dr. K Lees, a consultant at the Western Infirmary.

Thursday 9th January 1997

The Business Meeting had its usual low attendance. However, there was some useful discussion on the G.D.M. motions, and the selection of delegates.

There are two meetings of the session remaining before the A.G.M. which takes place on Thursday 18th April 1997.

Thursday 6th February 1997

A quiz night is being held in place of the usual bowling night. Previous quiz nights have been well attended, and it is hoped that this one will be no different. Only one thing is certain - the questions will not be pharmaceutical!

Thursday 6th March

This meeting is on the subject of intensive care and is to be addressed by Ms Mojgan Sani.


Other Group Information

The British Pharmaceutical Conference was held in Glasgow in September, and many members within the Group had active roles in the organisation and stewarding of the event. A very successful Guild Reception was held on the Thursday evening before the ceilidh.

Over the past year, there have been several occasions where information on posts and situations has been very difficult to obtain. The report of the Price Waterhouse audit on the pharmacy at the Royal Infirmary has still not been released, although it was expected in early December.

Crosshouse Hospital was in the news, with major redundancies threatened. Some posts were lost, including two pre-registration posts, and although some fixed term posts were not extended, I am not aware of any redundancies

There have been several highly graded posts available. These include Directors of Pharmacy at Glasgow Community and Mental Health Trust, Inverclyde Royal Hospital Trust, Lomond Healthcare Trust and the Royal Alexandra Hospital Trust. The three main acute trusts in the Argyll and Clyde area all have new Pharmacy Directors. I wrote to the Chief Executive of the Glasgow Community and Mental Health Trust with some concern over the terms and conditions of employment for the post. The Chief Executive acknowledged that there was some room for misunderstanding, and the post was readvertised.

There has been a major reshuffle at Greater Glasgow Health Board, with the Chief Administrative Pharmaceutical Officer taking early retirement, and his post being replaced by a Pharmacy Practice Advisor.

The Ayr Hospital is possibly the only hospital within the group where there is not a recognition agreement in place. Instead of negotiating things on a Trust basis, management have decided to proceed on a departmental basis. This has meant that the accredited rep has been involved with pay negotiations for the pharmacy staff.

I have become increasingly concerned with the level of Full Time Officer support which will be available to accredited reps should the Organising Works strategy be implemented further in Scotland. The majority of the recommendations of the strategy are already in place, and further reductions in full time officer support are liable to be disastrous. I wrote to Mr Tony Whitely in November and received an acknowledgement of the letter. Since I had not had any further communication with regard to the content of the letter, I wrote again in January. The reply acknowledged some of my concerns and outlined how it was intended these should be overcome.

COLIN RODDEN
27.1.97