BCS Health Scotland 2013-14AGMMinutes
4pm, 12th November 2013,IBM United Kingdom Limited, 21 Saint Andrew Square, Edinburgh, EH2 1AY, UK.
1Welcome and Apologies
Sharon Levy chaired the meeting and chair welcomed those present both in person and on the teleconference.
Present: Andrew Turner, Angus McCann (via TC) Ian Thompson (via TC), Janice Watson (Via TC), Paul Woolman (via TC), Sharon Levy, Elizabeth Brooks (via TC), Margaret Moore, Eddie Turnbull
Apologies were received from Cheryl Trigg, Gillian Flett.
It was noted that IBM were once again extremely generous in offering to accommodate the AGM of BCS Health SCotland
2Minutes of Previous AGM
The minutes of the previous AGM were accepted as an accurate record.
3Matters Arising
There were no matters arising that had not already been addressed in the intervening period.
4Chairman’s Report
Andrew Turner gave a verbal report thanking all the committee for a successful year for the SIG and paid tribute to the officers and those working behind the scenes in the SIG and annual Health Informatics Scotland Conference. He indicated that his written report would be circulated after the meeting with the minutes.(Attached below)
5Financial Report
The chair thanked the Treasurer for her work throughout the year and for her detailed report, which had been circulated with the AGM papers. The treasurer highlighted that there were still outstanding invoices to pay from the 2013 conference , which, as ever had income and expenditure spilt over 2 financial years. She highlighted that we had spent less than expected in the last year due to not undertaking our planned meeting on the Western Isles. She highlighted that the allocation for 13/14 was 50% of what had been requested, and that as a result we may need to review our planned activates for 13/14 in the light of this.
6Election of Officers
The following officers were elected unopposed
Post / NameChair / Andrew Turner
Treasurer / Margaret Moore
Secretary / Ian Thompson
Health Informatics Scotland Conference Chair / Paul Woolman
Membership Secretary / TBC ? Janice Watson
After discussion about committee roles the following were agreed.
Member Communications (Website, Linked in, e-mail list) / Gillian FlettCommittee Meetings Co-ordination / Angus McCann
Health Informatics Scotland Conference Deputy Chair / Ian Thompson
Action: All officers were asked to review the SOP that had been circulated amongst the committee and the examples on the headquarters website to try and come up with a suitable role description for the next committee meeting
7Confirmation of Committee members
All existing committee members present indicated they were willing to continue on the committee.
Action: Andrew Turner to contact those committee members not present to check they wished to remain on the committee.
Paul Woolman indicated 2 people who might be interested in joining the committee had contacted him. Once he received contact from these people, he would approach the committee to gain acceptance for their co-option.
It was also suggested that Dr Matt-Mouley Bouamrane, who had played a significant part on organising the research stream in the 2103 conference be approached by Elizabeth Brooks with a view to formalising his involvement through becoming a committee member.
Action: Paul Woolman /Elizabeth Brooks to advise committee once a response has been received.
8Plan for 2013/4
The BCS Health Informatics Scotland Conference is the main event of the Health Scotland special interest group calendar. Paul Woolman outlined the progress with the conference planning; the dates will now be 2nd and 3rd September 2014 in the Grand Central in Glasgow. There was brief discussion about the themes for the conference in 2014, along with discussion about the possibility of vendor sessions in the conference – with regard to this it was felt that these should both be clearly labelled as such and be part of the main streams and not in a separate stream. There was also brief discussion about venues for the 2015 conference.
Action: Paul Woolman to propose some dates for a teleconference in the next few weeks to discuss Health Informatics Scotland 2014 conference in more detail.
Sharon asked if we should be offering BCS awards next year and Margaret and Andrew suggested that this may be an appropriate plan and that a special funding request would need to be submitted to BCS HQ for it. This item will need to be revisited at a later date.
Sharon suggested that we should consider ways to strengthen collaborative work with peers in social care settings. He suggested that this maybe the focus of the proposed webinars we planned for 2013/4. It was agreed that once the 2013/14 financial accounts are finalised we will be in a better position to progress with our webinar plans and the visit to the Western Isles (which Lachlan was given the lead for).
9AOCB
None noted
BCS Health Scotland Committee 2013-4 (confirmed after AGM)
Elizabeth Brooks – University of Western Isles
Jackie Caldwell – NHS National Services Scotland
Gillian Flett (Member Communications Co-ordinator) – NHS Education for Scotland
Sharon Levy – University of Edinburgh
Lachlan MacPherson – NHS Western Isles
Angus McCann – IBM
David McDermott – Voice Technologies
Margaret Moore –
Ian Thompson – GP in NHS Lothian, Scottish Clinical Information Management in Practice (Conference chair),
Cheryl Trigg –Sopra Group
Eddie Turnbull – Head of eHealth, eHealth Directorate, Scottish Government
Andrew Turner(Chair) – NHS Dumfries and Galloway
Janice Watson – ISD Scotland
Paul Woolman (Conference Chair) – NHS National Services Scotland
TBC
Dr Matt-Mouley Bouamrane – University of Glasgow
Eunice Muir
Lesley Holdsworth
Campbell Grant
Appendix 1: Chairman's Report 2013
This year has been another successful year for the group. Not wishing to steal the thunder of other's I would just like to say we had a really successful conference in the Edinburgh Conference Centre. I would like to thank all of those involved in making the event another success. This is all the more difficult given that every year, for a very good reason, we visit a different venue (although in 2014 we will happily be returning to the Glasgow Central Station Hotel). Every year our volunteers have to learn a new layout, contacts with new people and arrange things to suit the venue. This facet of the conference no doubt adds to some of the problems we get but our reliable team of volunteers , once again, pulled together to make the event a big success.
I am not really a big fan of picking out individuals from such a team but I will make an exception here to which I don't think anyone will object. Thanks must go to Paul Woolman for his efforts. I'm not sure where the Conference would be without his work.
Aside from the Conference I would also like to thank the members of the committee who work tirelessly behind the scenes to cover the administrative burden. Our Secretary and Treasurer have put in a lot of work to make sure we keep our committee, our Members and the sometimes fickle BCS HQ staff happy. I know Ian would prefer someone to step in to help/take over with the role of Secretary so if there are any volunteers out there please step up this year.
Some of you may have noticed the IET stand at conference. I am trying to involve other professional bodies in our events as I am sure there are some real synergies to be had from co-operative working with other bodies. Please be sure to welcome them. I know Professor Sandham was very impressed with our conference this year and he was overwhelmed with the amount and quality of interest at his stand.
Lastly I would like to thank the staff at BCS HQ for their help and support throughput the year. Again without their work our group simply could not operate at the same level.
So let’s move on to 2013/14.
HealthCare in Scotland is about to undergo what may well be an even bigger change than that which is being seen in England at the moment (and heaven knows GP consortia commissioning in England is seeing more than a few problems). The imminent fusing together of Health and Social Care will bring with it many challenges not least of which will be an even more urgent requirement to ‘Close the Loop’ of information around providing care. Given that we are seen as a leading light in the Informatics and IT space we are well placed to assist with this process by pulling together members from both aspects of the care consortium. We must take this opportunity to establish BCS Health Scotland as the ‘go to’ centre of expertise when questions arise regarding Informatics and ICT. One way we can do that by publishing Scottish specific BCS position statements on different topics as is being done in England at present.
I believe we should also be making more efforts in bringing in new BCS members (and I am as guilty of not doing so as anyone!!). There are legions of ICT and Informatics staff at all levels, working in ICT departments, Laboratories, Medical Physics - I could go on. Many of these people have never heard of BCS or BCS Health Scotland. They are probably not aware of the huge amount of support on offer from BCS in terms of professional personal development, networking and resources we can offer. I believe that in order to improve the professionalism of these staff it is essential that we find ways to bring them into the body of our kirk. I would like 2014 to be the year when we reach out to these people and bring a few more members into our organisation.
Lastly there will be BCS members who are involved, in many different ways, in HealthCare and Informatics but who are not members of our Group. Let us make 2014 the year we bring our group to their attention. After all the bigger the group the more chance of finding more willing volunteers.
Thanks to all.
Andrew Turner
BCS Health Scotland Chairman