Regional Member for Scotland Report from Guild Council Meeting 25.9.08



Terms and conditions
Pay Review Body - There was a report of a meeting with the Department of Health to satisfy the request of the Pay Review Body. The meeting should have been a three way meeting with NHS Employers, but their two representatives sent apologies instead! Another meeting is planned for the start of October. GHP made the case that the RRP is about enhancing equality not reducing it. If the RRP is awarded and reviewed after 3-4 years it must be better than the grade drift which is already occurring. It was noted that the "golden handcuffs" suggestion made by the PRB is not allowable under AfC.

Emergency Duty - Protection of all on-call agreements has been extended to March 2010. This is confirmed in the Terms and Conditions Handbook and on the NHSE website. The first proper meeting of the Staff Council subgroup took place last Tuesday. The Unite working group, of which Dave Thornton is a member, meets on 8th October. The working group have been tasked to collect as much information on on-call systems as possible. Pharmacy is quite consistent in the way it runs it’s out of hours services. Other professions are wide ranging in their agreements. Their on-call work accounts for between 5-10% and 100% on top of their basic salary. The challenge is to come up with a workable and affordable solution. The interim agreement in place for those without agreed on-call systems is probably okay - except for the percentages attached to the rota frequency. These would need to be changed by quite a bit to be acceptable. The problem is that it doesn't measure intensity either. It is thought that the flat fee type of EDA is dead and buried by the precedent of the unsocial hours agreement. It was agreed that whatever is put in place, it must be for emergencies only and be up to the professional involved to decide whether they need to attend.

Pay Campaign Ballot - There was discussion on the forthcoming ballot and the necessity of obtaining a yes vote. It is thought the ballot will take place between late-October and mid-November. There will be two questions - The type of industrial action that could be taken would be to work to your contracted hours / job description; do only patient care duties and no administration tasks. In previous strikes, nurses would not do any non-patient contact duties. N.B. We would never ask anyone to compromise their professional / ethical duties.

There is a strong feeling that all out strike action is the only option left.

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Shaun Noble
Council then had a presentation from Unite Communications Officer Shaun Noble on dealing with the press and writing effective press releases. Finding the human element and converting the issue into lay terms are important and clarity is vital.

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Nigel Clarke
The next presentation and discussion was with Nigel Clarke, the Chair of TransCom. He asked Council to encourage colleagues to get involved in the professional leadership body (PLB) discussions. There is great ignorance in the profession about what is happening. TransCom will only meet five times. The majority of the work is being done by the working groups and, in some cases, advisory groups. All documents and draft papers are online at www.transcom and podcasts are downloadable from iTunes.

The only decision taken so far is on the structure of membership. There will be

Post nominals such as MRPharmS come from the professional body. Work, however, needs to be done in this area.

The focus of the PLB needs to be the provision of services to the members. There is a large leadership function and also professional development. The structure needs to be “bottom up” with a branch structure if members want it. The board structure will be on a national basis e.g. Scotland, Wales and England.

It is not possible to create a new Royal Charter Body by January 2010. Once the PLB is there, members can decide on the name. It will not be perfect when it starts, so people need to get involved to influence things. You will not get what you want if you don’t get involved; you will get what someone else wants.

It was made clear to Nigel Clarke that the body will be struggiling for membership if the membership fees for the GPhC and PLB combined are over £400. It is important to know how much the regulator needs and what is left over for the PLB. There will be core costs for the regulator and the greater the membership, the lower the costs.

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Pria Sejpal
Pria Sejpal then discussed the GPhC and how the work is progressing. The Section 60 consultation has not yet been published. The GPhC will be fully operational on 1st January 2010 with a transitional GPhC in place by the middle of 2009.

She went on to discuss the Responsible Pharmacist proposals. The regulations have still to be laid and it will probably come into being on 1st October 2009. There was some discussion on what exactly constituted the “business of a hospital” as this is key to a number of things.

Colin Rodden
25 September 2008

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