NES NES/15/42
Item 4 (Enclosure)
June 2015
CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S REPORT
Caroline Lamb, Acting Chief Executive
June 2015
INTRODUCTION
The agenda for our meeting today is very focussed on governance items, particularly the presentation of our Annual Report and Accounts. In advance of being asked to formally approve the Annual Report and Accounts Board members will receive the report from our external auditors and the Annual Report from the Audit Committee which describes the work that has been done to review the whole system of internal controls in operation within our organisation. The Board will also be asked to formally approve its own Annual Report which describes how it has discharged its responsibilities during the year and which members have had an opportunity to contribute to in draft.
In addition to these very important matters of governance we also have a full update for the Board on our work in Healthcare Science, which I am sure members will find very informative.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Board Members will be aware that The Scottish Government has announced that Malcolm Wright has been appointed to the permanent position of Chief Executive in NHS Grampian. Malcolm has been on secondment from NES to NHS Grampian for the last 6 months, however this development means that he will be resigning his post with NES.
Malcolm has been Chief Executive in NES since 2004 and during that time has overseen the very significant growth and development of this organisation. He has been an excellent Chief Executive for NES, and I know that colleagues will want to wish him all success in his new role. We are working with Malcolm to identify a date for a dinner with the Board to recognise his huge contribution to NES.
The Chair and Board of NES will now put in place appropriate arrangements to recruit a new permanent Chief Executive for this organisation. In the meantime, and until the recruitment process is concluded, the acting up arrangements put in place for Malcolm’s secondment will continue.
AWARDS
NES Staff Thanks and Recognition Scheme
The recent one-NES Conference saw the presentation by the Acting Chief Executive and Chair of the Staff Governance Committee of our first Staff Thanks and Recognition Scheme (STARS) Awards. Certificates and engraved glass awards recognising significant contributions that reflect NES’ Ways of Working were presented to 5 individuals and 2 teams across 6 categories in front of approximately 160 colleagues.
NES STARS was developed in Partnership with a group of colleagues from across Directorates and regional offices in late 2014. The work was completed with the brief that as part of our commitment to valuing staff, delivering an effective workforce, and continuing to improve staff engagement and wellbeing the scheme should provide an opportunity to recognise colleagues (individuals or teams) in NES who go the extra mile in demonstrating our values and behaviours at work.
Nominations were invited in respect of 9 categories. 7 of these were the published ways of working that NES is committed to, with two additional categories defined by the working group of colleagues who helped to develop the parameters for the scheme. These were: customer care excellence (internal or external) and support provided to a colleague(s) in exceptional or challenging circumstances.
A panel comprised of: the Acting Chief Executive, Employee Director; Director of Workforce, Head of OD & Learning and a member of the Short Life Working Group reviewed and assessed nominations against criteria agreed in Partnership. This enabled identification of examples in each category that stood out as the best in class, whilst at the same time noting the wide range of positive behaviours and actions that should be recognised and celebrated. All nominations have been summarised in a booklet subsequently published on the Intranet.
Anecdotal feedback from before and during the Conference indicates the Scheme has been received positively. Building on this, it is planned to enable nominations to be made throughout the year with panel reviews taking place 2 or 3 times during the year to identify those whose contribution should be recognised by presentation of an award. It is hoped this will encourage more nominations as people are not required to wait until a specific point in the future to submit them.
Voluntary Service Award
Two foundation dentists Niall McGoldrick and Orna Ni Choileain have won the “Voluntary Service Award” at the NHS Lothian Celebrating Success Awards 2014.
They were nominated for being the driving force behind “Let’s Talk About Mouth Cancer”, a campaign to raise awareness of mouth cancer across Lothian. The campaign has seen free mouth cancer screening events across Lothian, as well as lectures to local dental professionals on the importance of the prevention and early detection of mouth cancer. The judges were extremely impressed with their enthusiasm in setting up and organising the campaign. Further details are available on : www.letstalkaboutmouthcancer.co.uk.
EVENTS
NES Staff Conference - OneNES
The NES Staff Conference took place on 27th May at Heriot Watt Conference Centre, Edinburgh and was attended by 160 staff from across Directorates and Regions.
The Chair opened the conference and highlighted that the purpose of the day was about cross-fertilization of ideas, the opportunity to showcase success while recognising challenges in order to support continuous improvement.
At the staff conference, delegates were asked at the beginning and end of the day to use electronic voting mechanism to rank how well they felt connected to other parts of NES on a scale of 1-9. The conference aim appears to have been achieved in that the voting indicated that staff felt more connected to other parts of the organisation by the end of the conference.
Staff heard keynote speeches from Olivia Giles, Chief Executive and Founder of "500 Miles", who gave a powerful speech on the theme of new opportunities and embracing change. Olivia described how contracting meningitis changed her life and how these events have influenced her attitude to change, and to life. Shirley Rogers, Workforce Director, Scottish Government, gave a keynote speech in the afternoon on the Workforce Vision and the workforce required for integration and greater public service collaboration. Paul Gray, Director General Health and Social Care and Chief Executive NHSScotland, followed Shirley with a keynote speech on the reality of our political environment and the role of empowered leaders and the wider workforce in achieving real political change. Staff were invited to ask questions following each keynote speaker.
Directorates were given the opportunity over the course of the day to highlight projects/initiatives through stands and also through the "Dashing White Sergeant" table sessions, which saw participants invited to join one of 16 tables were the hosts were given 10 minutes to engage/interact with colleagues with the aimbeing toincrease colleagues knowledge of the work being done across NES. Participants were able to visit 8 tables that took their interest.The table sessions were interactive and staff were able to feedback.Some of the themesincludedOptometry, Turas, Psychology of Physical Health, Design and leadership.
5th Scottish Medical Education Conference
The 5th Scottish Medical Education Conference, incorporating the annual Medical Appraisal Conference and the Practice Nurse Conference, was held on 27-28 April 2015 at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. This was the first time the event was held over two days and allowed for an expanded programme, significantly more time for networking with colleagues and an opportunity for a highly successful Medical Directorate Awards Dinner on the intervening evening. A record 643 delegates attended. The theme of the meeting was “Delivering Professionalism and Excellence in Scottish Medicine”. The programme included a mixture of plenary talks and a number of parallel workshops. The conference was opened by the NES Chair, Dr Lindsay Burley CBE. Keynote speakers included Niall Dickson (Chief Executive, GMC), Professor Trudie Roberts (Director, Leeds Institute of Medical Education), Paul Gray (Director General, NHS Scotland), Denise Coia (Chair, HIS), Dr Marie Kerrin (Director, Work Psychology Group) and Professor Stewart Irvine (Medical Director, NES). Topics included an overview of the work of the GMC, Professional Integrity, Medical Leadership, Ensuring Quality across the Spectrum of Medical Education and Training and Assessing Values in Medical Education and Healthcare.
There were a total of 26 workshops; all these sessions were well attended and feedback from delegates was very positive. A record 90 posters were presented and this gave an opportunity to showcase some outstanding medical education initiatives and research from across Scotland. The three highest scored abstracts were selected for plenary oral presentations and these were extremely well received. Attendees appreciated the opportunity to network with colleagues, share ideas, learn about new policies, strategies and frameworks and generally discuss topics of relevance to undergraduate and postgraduate education in Scotland. Caroline Lamb, Acting Chief Executive, concluded the conference with an excellent summary of many highlights from the successful two day event.
NHS Education for Scotland and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Joint Conference
Prescription for Excellence- It’s happening now!
In September 2013, Prescription for Excellence – a vision and action plan was launched by the Scottish Government highlighting the potential for person-centred pharmaceutical care in our future healthcare system and a 10 year plan on how this could be delivered.
On 26th May 2015 a national conference was held in Edinburgh to discuss the progress being made by NHS Boards in implementing Prescription for Excellence across Scotland. This national event was run jointly by NHS Education for Scotland and The Royal Pharmaceutical Society in Scotland. The aim of the conference was to identify developments occurring in Health Boards and to facilitate cross fertilisation of developments across Scotland. Every health board in Scotland presented the work they are carrying out.
NATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
The NHS Scotland Leaders Forum and the Transformational Change Programme Board
Last year, Paul Gray, Director General Health and Social Care/Chief Executive of NHS Scotland brought together the Chairs and Chief Executives of Health Boards, together with members of the Health and Social Care Management Board to form a ‘Guiding Coalition’ to enable discussions and to agree positive actions in relation to some of the key challenges facing NHS Scotland. The Guiding Coalition has met on a number of occasions and has identified key workstreams that need to be progressed. Scottish Government have now decided that a more formal structure of programme management needs to be put around this important work and have therefore established a Transformational Change Programme Board, which will meet for the first time on 24th June. This Board reports to Paul Gray and the members are: Michael Kellet, Director of Healthcare Strategy SG (Co-Chair and Programme Senior Responsible Officer); John BurnsChair of NHSS CE Group (Co-Chair); Robert Calderwood, Chief Executive of Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board; Jeanne Freeman, Chair of the National Waiting Times Centre Board; Geoff Huggins, Acting Director for Health and Social Care Integration, SG; Caroline Lamb, Acting Chief Executive at NHS Education for Scotland; Jason Leitch, National Clinical Director, SG; Shirley Rogers, Deputy Director Workforce, SG; Andrew Scott,Director of Population Health Improvement, SG; and Sally Witcher, CEO of Inclusion Scotland. Programme Management support for this work is being led by Ricky Verrall, who some members will remember from his previous involvement with NES.
The group of Chief Executives and Chairs, previously called the Guiding Coalition is now to be known as the NHS Senior Leaders Forum, and this group will also meet immediately following the first meeting of the programme board.
SHARED SERVICES
One of the workstreams previously discussed by the Guiding Coalition has been Shared Services, and the Chief Executives have agreed that it is appropriate for NSS to provide programme management of this work, focussed at first identifying the state of play in relation to shared services across business support, operations and clinical services; and then preparing a proposal for prioritising and taking this work forwards, together with details of anticipated benefits, to be discussed by Chief Executives in October. NSS have proposed a programme board to oversee this work and I have been asked to represent the Special Boards on this group.
MEDICINE
GMC Education and Training Standards
Following a nationwide consultation, GMC Council has approved a new single set of standards for undergraduate and postgraduate medical education and training[1]. These will be published in July, will become effective from January 2016, and will be the standards against which Scotland will be judged during the regional review in 2017.
GMC United Kingdom Medical Licensing Assessment
GMC Council has approved a plan to work with partners to develop a unified assessment for every doctor seeking to practise in the UK[2]. It has been given a working title of the United Kingdom Medical Licensing Assessment (UKMLA). The new assessment would replace the current Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board test (PLAB) which is now taken by International Medical Graduates (IMGs).
GMC National Training Survey
The National Training Survey (NTS) ran from 24th March – 6th May, and provides an annual opportunity for all doctors in training in the UK to provide feedback on the quality of their training 53,138 doctors in training completed the survey (98.6% of those eligible – an increase of 0.4% on 2014) The detailed results are now available on-line[3], and the key findings from the survey will be published in Autumn 2015. In Scotland, 4,984 doctors in training completed the survey (97.2% of those eligible – a decrease of 0.3% on 2014). 82.2% of doctors in training rated the quality of their experience as either excellent or good (no change on 2014, compares with 82.9% for UK as a whole). Across all key indicators, Scotland’s scores are broadly in line with that of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
In 2016, the GMC will run an additional national survey of trainers (named educational and clinical supervisors) at the same time as the survey of trainees. This follows a successful pilot trainer survey which ran in 2014 (Key Findings report published on 3rd June 2015).
UK Recruitment into Postgraduate Medical Education and Training
Thus far (it is not yet complete) the 2015 recruitment round has filled 2,542 of 2,754 (92%) vacant posts, and the overall fill rate of the establishment of training posts is currently 96%. The fill of vacant foundation posts is 100%, of core and run-through posts 84.5% and of vacant higher specialty training posts 67.4%. Fill rates in some specialties and geographies remain challenging. As part of an initiative led by Scottish Government, NES took part in a visit to the Netherlands to explore the possibilities of recruiting amongst graduates of European medical schools.