NHS GRAMPIAN
Minute of the Grampian Area Partnership Forum (GAPF)
held on Wednesday 16 December 2009 at 2.00pm
in the Conference Room, Summerfield House
Present:
Gordon Stephen, Staff Side Chair/Employee Director
Mike Adams, UCATT
Brigid Aitken, RCN (Video Conferenced)
John Brett, Head of Health and Safety
Jim Clark, GMB
Joe Collier, Clinical Nurse Manager
Jon Cresswell, BMA
Andrew Fowlie, General Manager Moray
Alan Gall, Director of Finance
Laura Gray, Communications Director
Heather Hardisty, Senior Service Manager, Aberdeen City CHP
Laura McDonald, Unison (deputy for Bettina Eyre)
Deirdre MacIntyre, SOCAP (Video Conferenced)
Sandra-Dee Masson, BAOT
Anne Ross, Head of Performance and Quality
Clare Ruxton, Head of Human Resources (HR)
Mike Scott, Staff Governance Committee
Lynn Shand, CSP
Mark Sinclair, Director of HR and Strategic Change
Vincent Shields, (deputy for Pauline Strachan)
Joan Anderson, Partnership Support Officer
In Attendance
Sarah Duncan, Unison Regional Officer for Item 2
Shiona Lumsden, Scottish Pensions Group for Item 3a
Richard Morrison, HRSC Manager for Item 3b
Helen Cheyne, KSF Project manager, for Item 11a
Diane Annand, Agenda for Change Project Manager for Item 11bi and 14bi
Kerry Mitchell, Travel Co-ordinator for Item 14bi
Gerry Donald, Head of Physical Planning for Item 15
Item / Subject / Action /1 / Apologies
Apologies were received from Pauline Strachan (Vincent Shields deputised), Eric Murray (Gary Mortimer deputised), Richard Carey, Chief Executive (no deputy), Jack Stuart, General Manager Aberdeenshire (no deputy available), Anne Inglis, Head of Organisational Development (no deputy), Jen Pittendreigh, BDA (no deputy), Kirsten Sawers, RCM (no deputy)
2 / National Dignity at Work Programme
Sarah Duncan attended the meeting to update the group on the work of the Dignity at Work Group Nationally. They have produced a DVD and Toolkit which has been funded by the Scottish Government. 750 copies of the Toolkit are available to Scottish Boards via HR Director, Employee Director, etc.
The Toolkit includes a number of ideas which Boards can utilise to try and combat the dignity at work issues there are. To find out how useful the Toolkit has been, feedback will be requested and the national group will meet in May/June 2010 to look at the feedback.
There is a new PIN Policy and Practice being developed and will be circulated for consultation soon. Once this has been finalised, Boards will have to review their local policies to ensure they are in line with the PIN. It is probably that NHS Grampian are already doing a lot of what is in the Toolkit and the PIN as they are ahead of most Boards in the work around Dignity at Work.
3
* / Pension Choice Exercise
a. Scottish Pensions Group
Shiona Lumsden from the Scottish Pensions Group attended the meeting to explain what was happening with the NHS Superannuation Pension Scheme (slides attached).
A Choice Exercise will begin on 18 January 2010 for staff who were in the pension scheme at 1 April 2008 and are still active members on 1 October 2009 to choose whether they want to stay in the current 1995 pension scheme or the new 2008 pension scheme. Packs will be sent from the Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) to home addresses of staff. There have been messages in payslips reminding staff to update their home address with the Payroll Department so the pack is sent to the correct address.
The packs will begin to be sent out on 18 January and will take about 3-4 weeks for all to be sent. The only staff not affected at this stage are GP’s and Dentists.
The choice exercise will only happen once. There will be 4 months to make a choice. Each individual member of staff is to make a decision on whether to stay with the current scheme or move to the new one. Once this decision has been made, it cannot be reversed.
The pack being sent out includes a personal guide with the individual member of staffs details of pension etc, a general guide and a question and answer sheet.
One of the main differences between the schemes is that with the 1995 scheme staff can retire at 60 (or 55 for special classes) with no reduction to their pension. In the new 2008 scheme the normal retirement age is 65 and if someone wanted to retire earlier than that they would have to take a reduction on their pension.
There are a number of tools available for staff to use to assist with the decision making process. These include the DVD (NHS Grampian will have about 20 to distribute), a website which includes a calculator, and other information.
HR and Payroll have received packs of information to use with staff and Trade Unions will be sent packs directly.
It was made very clear that the choice of moving or not has to be made by the individual member of staff. It was recommended that no-one gives staff actual advise on whether to move or not. The job of GAPF Representatives, managers, Trade Unions, etc is to ensure that staff have all the information they require to make their own decision. It can be suggested that staff seek independent financial advice. Every member of staff will have different circumstances eg length of service, salary, personal commitment, personal plans and this makes it impossible for anyone internally to be able to give advice.
b. NHS Grampian Communication Exercise
There will be another message in payslips in January 2010 stating that the process has begun and packs will have started to be distributed to home addresses. It is essential that home addresses are up to date.
There are Scottish workshops for HR and Payroll Staff but only two places available to each Board. There is to be a Trade Union/Professional Organisation Workshop but not date had been published yet.
There is a Pensions Advisory Service and they have offered to come up and speak to staff. They can give individual and impartial advice to Staff. Hopefully a few sessions will be organised around NHS Grampian and HR Service Centre staff who assist with these sessions so there is local input and assistance as well as national assistance.
The DVD and Website will be publicised widely to staff. There are comparison tables, calculators, fact sheets, question and answer sheets, etc on the website.
There are posters available and these will be distributed across NHS Grampian.
Payroll Department will continue to have a message in payslips which will countdown to the end of the choice exercise reminding staff each month that they have to get their response in by the closing date.
If a member of staff does not return their paperwork their pension will not change and they will stay in the existing 1995 scheme.
4 / Minute of Meeting held on 24 November 2009
The minute of meeting held on 24 November 2009 was approved
5 / Matters Arising
a. Continuous Service Improvement Update
Mark Sinclair explained that the process was moving along well. The Value Stream Analysis (VSA) for Orthopaedics had gone well and moving to the implementation stage. The VSA looks at things that are done that do not add value to a service to either the NHS or to the patient/client.
Unfortunately when this project moved into the implementation scheme enthusiasm waned greatly as time was not available to take forward the identified actions. It was essential that the correct group of staff who can made decisions meet to do the VSA and that time is made available to carry out the actions.
Andrew Fowlie explained that he had been involved in a whole system approach for unscheduled care focussing not just on accident and emergency departments but the whole system including community hospitals etc. The work was giving positive outcomes.
b. Voluntary Early Release Scheme (VERS)/Voluntary Severance (VS)
61 staff out of the 62 staff who were offered VERS/VS have accepted and the closing date has now past.
The first meeting with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to take forward the audit of the VERS/VS process had been held. A lot of evidence was gathered for the audit by Richard Morrison, HRSC Manager and Susan Coull, HR Manager.
It was hoped that the audit would be complete mid to late January then it would be taken to a variety of groups within NHS Grampian including GAPF, OMT and if the audit report is agreed then it will be shared with other Boards and STAC (Scottish Terms and Conditions Committee).
It was noted that Staff Side Organisations and other NHS Employers were watching the process closely and would be scrutinising the audit report when available.
Sandra-Dee Masson reported that other Staff Side Organisations were not happy that we had used VERS/VS and think we should have stuck strictly to Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions.
The audit was based on the process which was used and not the principle of VERS/VS. The principle to go ahead with the local VERS/VS scheme was agreed locally and supported by GAPF and the Staff Governance Committee and a variation order from the Scottish Government had been granted. The GAPF stand by their decision to take this forward.
6 / Any Other Competent Business Determination
Infection Control Policy – See Item 16.
7 / Financial Report
Financial Report
a. NHS Grampian Reports
Alan Gall reported that the NHS Grampian Financial Report for November 2009 showed that there was a breakeven position in November and a £3.2m overspend for the year date. The current local forecast is that there will be a £4m overspend by the end of the financial year requiring early action to resolve.
Alan Gall was going to report a deficit of £2.9m to the Scottish Government which was the first time this year he had been reporting that we would not break even. Alan expected to be called to the Scottish Government to explain why there was a deficit.
This would give Alan the opportunity to raise with them a number of financial issues he felt were outwith our immediate control. For example, £3.8m was expected mid year from the Scottish Government for Access Funding which had already been committed to building up capacity mainly in nursing and AHP (Allied Health Professionals) to assist with the waiting time targets. The funding was not forthcoming half way through the year and there was no time to be able to plan a way out of the expenditure, therefore NHS Grampian had to fund this instead through making savings elsewhere.
2010/11 will be even more difficult financially than the current year. It is estimated at present that we will have a £35m budget gap. NHS Grampian receives £900m in total, some of which we have little or no control over spending it eg Family Health Services and this is a huge part of the budget.
The Capital Expenditure for the year is £55m. The Scottish Government are overcommitted for Capital Funding and it is expected that they will ask us to reduce our capital spend for this year which we will find it very difficult to comply with as our plans and commitments are very far advanced. We have an extremely robust capital expenditure plan which needs to be taken forward for the development of NHS Grampian.
To be able to close the £35m gap next year, we have to make NHS Grampian as efficient as possible. There are no services which can be stopped so each one has to be as efficient and effective as they can.
The Scottish Government will be coming to NHS Grampian next year to discuss efficiencies for 2010/2011. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) undertook an audit which showed that we were already a low cost Board so it will be very difficult to find savings.
According to the Arbuthnott/NRAC (National Resources Allocation Committee) formula NHS Grampian should be receiving £25m more funding per annum than it currently does.
It is critical to follow through on CSI projects to implementation stage to see the savings.
There was a question regarding the cost of actions having to be put into place to improve the fabric and cleanliness of the building for reasons of Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI) and Inspections on Health and Safety being done. Where was this money coming from if we do not have enough funding already? The answer was that we do not have the money but are having to take forward these actions to improve the safety of patients regardless of cost. This will require reprioritisation of our plans.
Skill mix was discussed and although it may seem like a quick fix to save money it should not be done for this purpose. Staff should not be working to a higher level than the band allows. The workforce must be fit for purpose and properly trained, etc Staff Governance and Clinical Governance are equally as important as Financial Governance.
b. Efficiency and Productivity Programme Management Office (EPPMO)
The EPPMO has been set up to look for efficiency possibilities within the organisation and support staff to make the changes necessary to achieve the efficiencies. Jack Stuart, General Manager, Aberdeenshire CHP had agreed to head up the EPPMO and Richard Carey is responsible for making sure it works, and he has delegated this responsibility to Alan Gall. Jack Stuart has delegated most of his General Manager roles and responsibilities to others in Aberdeenshire CHP and will begin with EPPMO at the end of this year.