SOUTH OF TYNE AND WEAR LOC
AGM 31/03/2011
THE RAVENSWORTH ARMS HOTEL, LAMSLEY
START TIME 6.30PM
The meeting started with a presentation from Linda Oliver from The Guide Dogs. She holds the post of “North East England Information Officer”.
She gave a 40 minute discussion about who is eligible for guide dogs, how the guide dogs are provided and who funds this. A short DVD presentation was shown. She asked that all our members take information to display in practices for the general public. She also asked us to think about promoting Guide dogs to visually impaired patients. She is also keen to promote information events for the friends and family of those with a visual impairment that maybe interested in using a Guide dog.
The AGM started at: 7.26pm.
Members Present: Tom Hedley, Naomi Smith, Wendy Bradshaw, Andrew Garvey, Iain Anderson, Dawn McGeorge, Tony Winlow, Judith Stewart, Ian Hickson, Tony Gibson, Lisa Gibson, Barbara Braysher, Penny Ransom, Laura Allon, Dave Berry, Bill Lowry, Chris Steele, Kaye Winship.
Apologies for absence: Susan Bennett, Simon McGuinness, Hugh Loughran, Kevin Boyle, Derek Casey, Dermot Thompson, Katrina Venerus.
Welcome to the AGM: TH gave a short welcome and thanks for attending.
Minutes of previous meetings:TH ran the meeting through the minutes for accuracy.
The minutes were accepted as a true account of the meeting.
Proposed by: Wendy Bradshaw
Seconded by: Iain Anderson
Matters arising:
TH and NS will be giving a talk to the Sunderland macular society group in May
The LEB meetings have run to a halt.
Novartis have sponsored our CET before, so we’ll keep these in mind for future events.
CS had mentioned glaucoma pathway and moving forward.
KV was to look at moving the child pathways forward. KV not here so LOCSU will have to report back on this at a later date.
Chairman’s report:Hopefully, you’ll all have received my last email, which more or less briefly summarises my thanks to you all for the support that you have given over the last year – one of our better years.
I’ll not go into great detail about our activities – but we have kept up the interface with the PCT’s in their phases of winding down and also with the emerging GP Consortia – where we can – the latter more recently at the LRC group meetings that have included the other Statutory Committees.
We have had good relationships with the Optometric Advisors and this has made communications with our local NHS that much easier.
Successful Service Developments / Business Cases have been facilitated by LOCSU, good input from our Committee, enlightened support from some of the PCT managers and constructive discussions with our hospital colleagues leading to lecture and training sessions involving local expertise. It takes understanding on all sides to achieve the aspiration of making our NHS work better for the patients / people whom we serve at the frontline / coalface.
I’ll not be standing again for Chairman but can remain on our Committee to help where I can. Past Chairmen – eg Derek Casey, Ian Thompson, and David Morris have remained very supportive when we needed them. They are also still around and still help where they can, whether on our Committee or not.
I must thank you all for putting up with my style (if that is the right word) of Chairing our meetings. I tend to go off on various tangents and I think that your collective decision to give our meetings time limits made the difference in helping to get through LOC Business. Thanks again to you all!!
TH has sent out a report via email this week.
I'll keep my own Report as brief as possible at the AGM. We will have the annual election of our Hon. Officers hopefully together with ideas to factor in to our Business Plan for the Year ahead. On a personal level I am really pleased with the way the work of our LOC has gone over the last Year. You have all done your bit to help and colleagues such as Wendy, Naomi, Katrina from LOCSU, Tony, Kaye, Iain Armstrong, Chris Steele and his colleagues from the SEI (and others) have taken Leads on Service Development and Training that have made a significant difference to advancing our local profession along with good input from our Executive Committee as a whole and the PCT's Optometric Advisor(s). Sharing the workload amongst our Committee Members has increased our sense of ownership and we need to continually look at this balance so that we do not overstretch that other "balance" between work and life. Particular thanks to our LOC Officers, Andrew and Naomi in keeping our LOC "structurally" sound - administration tasks take a lot more time than we might think!!
There's bound to be a lot more to discuss tomorrow (I have my own list of items - please do bring along your list too!!) - hopefully as many of you can attend as is possible. The three-year cycle of the full Executive Committee Election, based on our latest Constitution, will be due in 2012
Secretary’s report:
Naomi reported on email logistics as email is now the preferred method of contacting performers and contractors. We have virtually all contacts now via email.
Nothing else of significance to report.
NS read out Katrina’s report.
Could you give my apologies and report that I have been approached by someone at the NE SHA to help him work on optometry based services that could fit under QIPP. It may or may not lead to anything, but there is a huge opportunity. They particularly want to look at commissioning services in the areas linked to the RVI and SEI, so practices in SOTW stand to gain if we get anything from it.
I am also trying to find out more about the roll out of the Health & Wellbeing Boards so that we can provide advice for LOCs in that respect.
Aside from that, then I think in the absence of an OA, the LOC has to work with the PCT re evaluating the IOP service etc., otherwise there won't be evidence to carry it on.
KW asked if KV is no longer an OA. It was confirmed that KV is no longer an OA so at present there is no OA for our area, but IAn is doing some advisory work for the PCT. Although he is working throughout the entire northern area.IAn is not under contract with the PCT.
Action plan for Business case:
TH will update the business plan on a regular basis with our achievements. He asked the floor if there are any achievements that should be added to our business plan.
CS asked if there was any evidence of how the glaucoma scheme is running. TH reports that we are looking into this. IAn commented that all comments so far have been positive and 50% approx. reduction in referrals.
CS also highlighted that the QIPPS issue may cause some changes within the hospital schemes as reviews and new patients will be funded separately. So this may push reviews to be monitored elsewhere.
IAn wanted to highlight that the remaining staff at the PCT have little or no knowledge of Optometry. Therefore, it is essential that we get audit data for the IOP scheme. CS agreed fully with this as audit of success is the only way to highlight that the project is working and
AG suggested that we perform our own audit using the data we have as it is patient protected so there will be no confidentiality issues.
I An discussed the CET issues with the Glaucoma – NS will report on this.
Treasurer’s report:
Accounts have been returned and signed off by the auditors.
The closing balance was £18,611.41
The opening balance was £20,862.63
The income for the year was £11,381.58
The expenditure for the year was £13,632.80
Deficit for the year £2,251.22.
The mains costs were:
Alco (drug disposal) £3,637.33. (Invoice for 2010 and 2011)
Central LOC fund £3,531.58
Chairman’s expenses £2,782.71
Notes: We continue to maintain a very healthy bank balance which hasn’t really moved up or down in the past 2-3 years. Our income generally matches our expenditure. This year being and exception and the deficit was largely due to the Alco payments being two in one year. March 2010 and Jan 2011
DM proposed that we donate £200 to the Guide Dogs.
This was seconded by TW and accepted by the group.
There was a discussion about the Levy as we have held our balance steady for some years. IAn commented that due to this we should think about reducing or having a year off payments. This was discussed by several in the group. TH commented that keeping a base amount is good for the LOC so that we can plan for CET events.
I An proposed that the levy was reduced to £10 per month.
Seconded by BB
This was carried with all votes for this.
LOCSU levy –
A short discussion was held about this levy and the amount of value for money we have from them.
IAn suggested that LOCSU provide us details of their accounts and work done for the next AGM so that we can digest their income and actions.
AG proposed that we stay to the current 0.5%
KW seconded this.
This was carried unanimously.
Voluntary central fund levy-
Sue Bennett had offered to stand down from the administrator for this due to her retirement. However, the group thought that her involvement with this was fine and that her wealth of experience would be beneficial to continue in this role. Thus was carried unanimously.
Auditors –
Thanks to Judith and Marion for their continued work as auditors. It was proposed that they continue in this role.
They will be approached to continue in their roles.
Glaucoma CET:
NS reported that we had 107 practitioners who were interested in the scheme. A handful of these have not registered so we should assume that these are no planning on entering the scheme. Of those registered there are only 6 that have not completed the full 4 sets.
Election of officers:
Chairman: Wendy Bradshaw
Proposed by: Tom Hedley
Seconded by: I Anderson
Secretary: Naomi Smith
Proposed by: Wendy Bradshaw
Seconded by: Tony Winlow
Treasurer: Lisa Gibson
Proposed: Andrew Garvey
Seconded: Tony Winlow
Vice Chairman: Tony Gibson
Proposed: Wendy Bradshaw
Seconded: Tom Hedley
All officers were unanimously voted by the group.
Tony Winlow proposed a vote of thanks to Tom Hedley for his work over the past years.
This was supported by the whole group
Lisa Gibson and Bill Lowry were co-opted onto the committee.
Tom Hedley to continue to chair the AGM until the end of the meeting.
AOB:
KW was invited to the South Tyneside branch of the diabetic screening board meeting. General discussion was about how things were run. Optoms role has been phased out by the NICE guidelines on the screening system.
Chris Steeleand David Steelhave offered to give a CET training day to train Optoms on Diabetes and Glaucoma issues.
Diabetes – growing issue and optoms will need to be involved in the future due to the numbers that will be put through the schemes.
Glaucoma – look at issues around the current IOP scheme and perhaps gonioscopy
Possibly also look at ARMD and also the new treatments that are being trialled at SEI.
It was agreed that a general overview on most aspects (including cataracts) would be very helpful for all.
KW has put together a draft overview for the training day and this was read out to the group. 8th July was suggested as a date for a full day. Or possibly have evening events instead. We will circulate the members to get a preference on full day or evening.
Chris Steele explained the changes to the diabetic screening system at SEI where the grading system is being changed to try to reduce the number of R2’s being referred into SEI. They are very aware that the numbers of patients will be increasing significantly over the next 10 years so they need to look ahead for alternative screening options. Currently they are screening 22,000 patients.
TH checked on GOS fee payments – no issues from the floor.
IAn proposed that we set up a separate group who hold general knowledge about the enhanced services across the region.
This was seconded by Chris Steele. Carried unanimously by the group.
Meeting ended: 8.28pm