NHS GRAMPIAN
Minute of the Grampian Area Partnership Forum (GAPF)
held on Wednesday 13 May 2009at 2.00pm
in the Conference Room, Summerfield House
Present:
Richard Carey, Chief Executive (Chair
Gordon Stephen, Staff Side Chair/Employee Director
Mike Adams, UCATT
Bill Boyes,ADOF - Corporate Finance (deputy for Alan Gall)
John Brett, Head of Health and Safety
Jon Cresswell, BMA
Sharon Duncan, Unite
Jim Ferguson, Associate Director of Facilities (deputy for Eric Murray)
Heather Hardisty, Senior Service Manager, Aberdeen City CHP
Laura Gray, Communications Director
Anne Inglis, Head of Organisational Development
Sandra-Dee Masson, BAOT
Bettina Low, Unison
Mike Ogg, Assistant General Manager (deputy for Jack Stuart)
Jen Pittendreigh, BDA
Ed Rennie, Head of Human Resources (HR)
Anne Ross, Head of Performance and Quality
Vincent Shields, Assistant General Manager - Division 3 (deputy for Alisdair Chisholm)
Philip Shipman, HR Manager Moray (deputy for Andrew Fowlie) (Video Conferenced)
Kirsten Sawers, RCM
Karen Thow, RCN
Joan Anderson, Partnership Support Officer
In Attendance
Diane Annand, Project Manager for Item 7b
Ross Davidson, Finance Manager for Item 9
Bob Irvine, Infrastructure DevelopmentManager for Item 10
Item / Subject / Action1 / Apologies
Apologies were received fromAnn-Louise Shields, BOS (no deputy),
Andrew Fowlie, General Manager Moray (Philip Shipman deputised), Alisdair Chisholm, Acute General Manager (Vincent Shields deputised), Eric Murray, Facilities Director (Jim Ferguson deputised), Alan Gall, Director of Finance (Bill Boyes deputised),Lynn Shand, CSP (no deputy), Jack Stuart, General Manager, Aberdeenshire CHP (Mike Ogg deputised), David Graham (no deputy), Deirdre MacIntyre, SOCAP (no deputy), Fiona MacKenzie (no deputy), Jim Clark, GMB (no deputy), Mark Sinclair, HR Director (no deputy)
2 / Minute of meeting held on 22 April 2009
The Minute of meeting held on 22 April 2009was approved.
3 / AOCB Determination and Guidelines for Paperwork
AOCB Determination has been reintroduced at the beginning of the agenda to establish if there are any issues which are real emergencies which could not have been put on the agenda and cannot wait until the next meeting.
Gordon Stephen explained that papers for GAPF Agenda will not be accepted within 7 days of a meeting. This will allow members of the forum to have time to read all the papers and give less chance to miss something coming in late by email. The only exception to this will be the updates from Agenda for Change to ensure they are as current to the meeting as possible.
4 / Matters Arising
a.Continuous Service Improvement
There was to be an event at the Treetops Hotel on 14 May to look at the various projects and prioritise these for taking forward by the organisation. As funding is less this year and may be even less next financial year there is a requirement to really focus on how NHS Grampian uses the funding we have to be able to deliver the high quality service we all wish to deliver. The funding to pay for ATOS Consultancy has come from funding specifically allocated from the Scottish Government for this purpose. This is an investment to return cost savings.
There was a query about whether the ATOS priorities fit in with NHS Grampians priorities: There was a reassurance that these all fitted well. The five NHS Grampian Strategic Themes are:
i.Improving the publics health, reducing inequalities
ii.Delivering safe, effective and timely care in the right place
iii.Involving patients, public, staff and partners towards mutuality
iv.Developing the workforce and empowering staff
v.Improving efficiency, productivity and sustainability
All managers’ objectives should also be aligned to these strategic themes.
Communication to staff had been delayed because the Information Exchange arranged for 29 April had been postponed due to emergency discussions on Pandemic Influenza. A new date would be arranged as soon as possible. In one way this was better as the event on 14 May would have taken place and more information would be able to be given at the information exchange on the priority projects.
b.Voluntary Severance (VS)/Voluntary Early Release Scheme (VERS)
The comments made at the last meeting were fed back to the small group who are working on these proposals. Work is continuing in accordance with the original timescale which is that it is currently out for consultation and will come to the meeting on 17 June for approval.
Voluntary Severance (VS) would continue as part of a suite of process to reduce recurring costs which also include how we handle vacancies.
There will be a period of time for staff to apply for VS and VERS probably starting on 1 July for four weeks. This would then allow NHS Grampian to know how many staff wish to leave and in what areas. Then a calculation can be made as to the cost of this, as each individual member of staff would incur a different cost to go and it would also allow for discussions on how redesign could take place to allow that person to go. Not all those applying for VS or VERS would be accepted. This will depend on costs and redesign opportunities.
It is important for NHS Grampian’s financial strategy to ensure the staffing levels are in line with recurring funding received.
c.Recruitment/Retention Premia for Joiners (RRP)
Letters had been sent to the Staff Side and the Management Side Secretariat of STAC (Scottish Terms and Conditions Committee) explaining that NHS Grampian had not withdrawn the application for RRP for Joiners and that GAPF fully supported the application going forward. A response was hoped for soon.
d.Mileage Consultation Update
Ed Rennie is chair of the national Mileage Group which met the week before. Grampian had received another 5 comments which had been collated and sent off by the deadline. All feedback would be received by the national group by 22 May. The data will then be analysed and a draft proposal will then be circulated.
e.Workplace Adjustment Policy Update
The Policies and Procedures Sub-Group were confused about the actual decision GAPF had made at the last meeting regarding this policy. Had they been asked to relook at the policy and make a recommendation or had they been told to change the policy writing out the element of half pay during phased return to work?
After much discussion it was agreed that the group were now being asked to produce a paper for the next meeting giving both situations of payment during phased return to work, a rationale for changing the policy from the current situation and include the approximate cost associated with any change.
The group were also asked to take account of established practice in this situation.
It was accepted that the organisation benefits from the phased return to work practice as it means staff are beginning to get back to work rather than still being off ill.
f.Management of Buildings/Premises with multi-occupancy
Mark Sinclair agreed to discuss this with Ewan Robertson, Performance Director, and there is no outcome yet.
The forum discussed how important this issue is, as until it is sorted out we are at risk for a number of health and safety and information governance issues. A report would be received at the next meeting and any proposal would require the backing of the Chief Executive and other Directors.
g.GAPF Away Day 19 March 2009
Everyone felt that the Away Day had been a success; especially the Sector Partnership Forum updates which showed all the good progress at local level.
John Gallacher, Staff Side Secretary to the Scottish Partnership Forum, was the keynote speaker and he has said he was very impressed with the information received at the Away Day and is using NHS Grampian as an example of good Partnership Working to other Boards.
The draft Action Plan was discussed and a couple of small amendments were agreed as follows:
Action 4 – remove Sandra-Dee from this as she represents Unison on SWAG, not NHS Grampian. Add – Supporting NHS Grampian employees to be on national groups.
The follow-up half day is on 2 September from 9am to 2pm. It had been very difficult to get a suitable venue on the date. Some possible venues were suggested and would be investigated and confirmation would be circulated. In the meantime all GAPF members and deputies, sub-group members and Sector Partnership Forum members were encouraged to put this date into their diary now. / LG
P&P Sub Group
MS
AI
ALL
5 / Pandemic influenza procedure for the management of the workforce
Thanks were given to everyone involved in achieving the completion of the Pandemic Influenza Procedure for the Management of the Workforce Policy in such a short time. A special thanks was given to Hall Harper for his invaluable input into this.
This policy has been developed specially for Pandemic Influenza and not any other type of emergency which may arise as the needs would be slightly different. Richard Carey, Chief Executive has the role of enacting the policy and Ed Rennie and Gordon Stephen will make decisions on an queries staff have on the policy.
The policy covers overtime arrangements for staff who are band 8a and over and senior managers who do not normally receive overtime. This would be paid at basic rate. There are some staff who may have to work overtime now to make preparations in case of a pandemic eg Public Health, Corporate Communications and Pharmacy staff, and they would receive payment for this.
In event of a pandemic, there may a need for staff to work in different areas to usual and there is a requirement for their registration to be up to date and disclosure Scotland checks to be done where necessary. There is a requirement now for a database to be kept on staff skills which they may not be currently using, eg a manager who used to do a clinical role. This should be done at the local workplace level.
GAPF support and approve the policy.
6 / Financial Report
NHS Grampian has successfully met the three targets set for 2008/09. The external auditors are undertaking their review work programme at the moment.
It is proving difficult to set achievable budgets for 2009/10. Discussions are ongoing and proposals are being looked, with priority given to those which impact least on direct patient care. A proposed budget will go to the Budget Steering Group on Monday 18 May 2009 and then the NHS Grampian Board meeting in June.
Whilst this financial year is extremely challenging, next year will be even more so, with a possible increase of only 1% versus 3.4% this year and 6-7% in previous years. Planning needs to start now for next year. The VERS/VS schemes are part of this planning process for longer term savings.
a. Recruitment Short Term Controls
It was agreed that posts could not be recruited to on a band lower than previously unless the need for that post was no longer required in the same way. Managers would be encouraged to look at how to redesign their area when a vacancy arose, and investigate the possibility of skill mix. This could not be done if there was a need for the postholder to do the work of the higher band. Evidence would need to be produced for the vacancy panel as to why the post was not reduced in band. KSF outlines will assist with this process.
The vacancy panel will meet weekly with applications being submitted to the panel from the Recruitment Section.
This initiative is just one part of the measures being looked at. Staff travel is another. The initial draft paper will be circulated to the forum.
7 / Agenda for Change
a.Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF) HEAT
There is a new HEAT Target of 80% of staff on Agenda for Change to have a pdp (personal development plan) reviews done and evidenced on eKSF by March 2011.
The KSF Sub-Group has disbanded and merged with the Learning and Development/Workforce Sub-Group.
Awareness sessions and basic IT Training have been put on hold because of staffing and finance. There is still a need for staff training including bank staff.
The IT person who was employed to work on passwords and user names for staff to get access to nhs.net will end their employment soon.
Consistency Checking work is ongoing. It is to be mainstreamed in line with agenda for change evaluation panels. Staff Side Representatives are required for this process to continue. A paper would be drawn up on what this would involve and a request would be made for more reps to volunteer.
Gateways have been put on hold nationally meantime. There is a query nationally regarding equal pay. NHS Grampian do not feel there is any issue as everyone has agreed to the Agenda for Change terms and conditions.
The reason for the KSF Team being disbanded was that KSF would be mainstreamed and that efficiency savings were to be found. Some of the Team were on fixed term contracts and this was felt to be an obvious way to save money. There was concern from the group this was done too early and too much work was still required by the Team and that expertise would be lost. It had been hoped that managers would pick up the work of the team, but managers were not ready for this, they did not have the necessary competencies yet.
Staff Side Representatives were very concerned about the reductionof the KSF Team at this time.
GAPF requested reassurance that there will be support in place to continue to develop KSF in accordance with the implementation plan. GAPF have a responsibility to ensure targets continue to be met.
Ed Rennie agreed to convey the discussion and all the comments to Mark Sinclair, Director of HR and Strategic Change. Sandra-Dee Masson, Staff Side Chair of the KSF Project Group to be involved in discussions with HR on the way forward.
b.Job Evaluation/Review Update
The first two Government targets of bank and substantive staff being assimilated by 30 April 2009 had been met. There are exceptions to the substantive staff of those on organisational change protection, TUPE transfers and employees subject to the local evaluation process. The numbers may never reach zero because of the first two categories which equal 49 employees.
For the workstreams of arrears and leavers NHS Grampian was following the locally agreed plan rather than the interim government targets; however the end target would be achieved.
Preliminary Screening and Review Audit
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) produced an interim report which had been commented on to influence the final report which was awaited. / SDM
8 / Staff Governance Report 2008/09 and Staff Governance Action Plan 2009/10
Audit Scotland has been involved in the 2008/09 report and have written a letter following meetings. On the whole it is positive but there are two points which are being disputed and the forum supported the conclusion of this dispute.
9 / Health Campus Programme Office Accommodation Review
Ross Davidson, Finance Manager, working with Graeme Smith in the Planning Department, attended the meeting to explain an accommodation review proposal. This covers all buildings in AberdeenCity which are non-clinical use. Consultants have been recruited to assist with space planning. A group will be set up to oversee the project. The plan is to maximise space and identify opportunities to rationalise and identify options for revenue savings. There will be a discussion on development of an office accommodation policy with sub-policies for individual areas and there will be partnership input into this. If a policy is drafted, it will come back to this forum for approval.
There is a role for the Acute Sector Partnership Forum but all staff within AberdeenCity may be affected. There is a Health Campus Liaison Group which will be reinvigorated and this will meet for 1 hour per month.
If homeworking is being proposed as part of these discussions it is important to ensure a proper policy is drawn up taking account of health and safety issues.
It was noted that having staff accommodation in the staff homes assisted to attract staff to the area as they could stay there while in the process of selling one house and purchasing another.
This item will be put on the BMA LNC agenda for discussion.
If anyone has any ideas on how work can be done differently and more flexibly, please pass on views to Ross Davidson or Graeme Smith.
10 / eHealth Mobile Data Protection Standard
Bob Irvine from IM&T came along to the meeting to explain how all lap tops were to be encrypted and all mobile information devices used in lap tops or pc’s across NHS Grampian were to be purchased from IM&T as these would be encrypted too. No-one was to use their own memory stick, mp3 player, etc in a lap top or pc once the encryption takes place. Compliance is mandatory.
It has been decided that the highest level of encryption will be used for every lap top therefore making the process more straight forward.
Lap tops will begin to be called in within 4 weeks and PDA’s will be done at a later stage. All lap tops are to be encrypted by the end of July 2009 which is an extremely challenging timescale. Anyonewith a lap top must comply with a request to bring it in for encryption.
There will be a “silent” audit on pc’s to find out who is using usb ports on their pc as ports can be switched off on pc’s where the usb is never used, therefore the pc does not need encryption software loaded onto it.
Anyone using their own datastick for NHS Grampian use should move the data onto an NHSG PC and wipe the data stick by formatting it.
As it will only be NHS Grampian encrypted data sticks that will work on NHS Grampian lap tops and pc’s if there is a need to allow someone outside NHS Grampian to use their own data stick, eg a presentation at an interview, a request can be made to IM&T to exempt a particular machine.
A communication plan has been developed and a number of emails will be sent out from IM&T within the next couple of weeks with details of this policy. There was a request to make the emails as simple as possible to understand.
There was a request for a question and answer sheet to be developed of commonly asked questions to assist staff.
11 / Policies for Approval
a. Professional Registration Policy
This policy was not ready for approval.
12 / Update from Sub-Groups
a.Health, Safety and Wellbeing Sub-Group
The new NHS Grampian Occupational Health and Safety Committee will now take over from this sub-group. The first meeting will be an extraordinary meeting on 18 May to discuss the purpose of the group, structure, etc. The first business meeting will be held on 23 June. This will be a partnership group with up to 10 places available for health and safety representatives.
The Forum was pleased that NHS Grampian had enhanced the health and safety committee set up.
b.Learning and Development/Workforce/KSF
Anne Inglis no longer chairs this group so in future reports will come from Sandra-Dee Masson, staff side chair of the group.
c.Terms and Conditions
Nothing currently to report.
d.Staff Management Policies and Procedures
Nothing currently to report apart from those issues previously discussed.
e.Staff Communications
The last meeting of the group was taken over to discuss Pandemic Influenza Management.
i.Staff Survey Update
All Sectors have been written to with their data and asked for reports by 1 October. 2009.
13 / Any Other Competent Business
a.Application for Working Well Challenge Fund which is a fund of money made available by the Scottish Government for Boards to bid for. Jason Nicol,
Manual Handling Advisor had produced an application for £28,400 for the purpose of Maintaining Moving and Handling Capacity to implement competency based training. The GAPF endorsed this application.
b.Enforcement of car parking arrangements at Foresterhill. A paper will be circulated prior to the next meeting. It will be discussed at the next forum meeting as it impacts on staff all over NHS Grampian and it will also be discussed at the Acute Sector Partnership Forum as it affects most staff on that site. The paper was developed from principles discussed by the Transport Group and also from Staff Side Group. Transport Group will discuss the paper again at its meeting next week prior to it coming to GAPF.
c.Information Governance
There is a need to raise awareness of all staff of the importance of confidentiality of data especially patient data.
We have a duty of care to patients and the public for their records. While doing health and safety inspections staff should be looking out for instances which could breach confidentiality. If anyone thinks there is a risk to someones data, they are encouraged to raise this either through their manageror through the datix system.
14 / Date of Next Meeting
The next meeting will be held on Wednesday17 June 2009 at 2pm to 5pm in the Conference Room, Summerfield House
15 / Items for Information
Noted.
Email: