NHS GRAMPIAN
Minute of the Grampian Area Partnership Forum (GAPF)
held on Thursday 16 February 2012 at 2.00pm
in the Conference Room, Summerfield House
Present:
Gordon Stephen, Employee Director (Chairperson)
Richard Carey, Chief Executive
Mike Adams, UCATT
Brigid Aitken, RCN (deputy for Alistair Grant) (VC)
Gemma Barclay, SOR
Jim Clark, GMB
Bill Cowling, Project Manager,Mental Health Services
Sharon Duncan, Unite
Frances Dunne, Service Manager, Aberdeen City CHP
Ian Francis, CSP
Laura Gray, Director of Corporate Communications
Alison Hardy, Clinical Nurse Manager
Heather Kelman, Lead General Manager, Change Fund – Reshaping Care for Older People (Deputy for Pauline Strachan)
Steven Lindsay, Unite (Observer)
Deirdre McIntyre, SOCAP (VC)
Martin McKay, UNISON
Sandra-Dee Masson, BAOT
Gary Mortimer, General Manager Facilities and Estates
Clark Paterson, Group Finance Manager (Deputy for Alan Gray)
Mike Ogg, Deputy Interim General Manager, Aberdeenshire
Anne Ross, Head of Performance & Quality Improvement
Clare Ruxton, Interim Director of Human Resources
Vincent Shields, General Manager Acute Services
Joan Anderson, Partnership Support Officer
In Attendance:
Annie Ingram, Director of Workforce NHS Grampian from 1 April 2012
Jill Sinclair, NHS 24 General Manager - Scottish Emergency Dental Service & North Contact Centre
Item / Subject / Action /1 / Apologies
Apologies were received from Kirsten Sawers, RCM (no deputy available), Shona McDougall, BDA (no deputy available), Jane Starley, BIOS (no deputy), Mike Scott, Chair of the Staff Governance Committee (no deputy available), Alan Gray, Director of Finance (Clark Paterson deputised), Eileen Grant, GHP (no deputy), Jenny Greener, non-executive director (no deputy), Sandy Dustan, General Manager, Aberdeenshire (Mike Ogg deputised), Andrew Fowlie, General Manager, Moray CHP (no deputy), Pauline Strachan, Chief Operating Officer (Heather Kelman deputised), Duncan Stephen, ACB (no deputy)
2 / NHS24 Telehealth
Gill Sinclair, NHS 24 General Manager - Scottish Emergency Dental Service & North Contact Centre attended the meeting to update on telecare and also the wider NHS24 developments.
Much work is being done around maximising the use of information technology equipment and the 2020 vision. Having people living longer at home by having new ways to access health care.
They were in the very early stages of sharing information between NHS24 and health and social care. There was definitely potential for this to be in the plans.
Gill confirmed that healthpoint and healthline would dovetail with services offered by NHS24 and there was a need for consistent messages from all.
Heather Kelman asked about how systems would be developed between the work she was doing around the strategic approach for the Change Fund and the 3 agencies involved and NHS24. Heather stated that she was happy to appoint a contact to be in touch with NHS24 to ensure services dovetailed and were not duplicated. Gill welcomed this approach. / HK
3 / Aberdeenshire Partnership Forum
Mike Ogg and Sandra-Dee Masson presented the work of the Aberdeenshire Partnership Forum. They held a workshop in 2011 to re-engage and recruit more representatives to join the Partnership Forum including health and safety reps. Aberdeenshire were redesigning into 6 areas and the plan was to develop partnership in each of the 6 areas and have a staff side and management representative attending the Sector Partnership Forum from each area.
At the end of each Partnership Forum meeting a team brief or news item was written so that issues were communicated to staff and the Sector Operational Management Team were doing this also.
The sector had a great need to recruit more Staff Side Reps and especially Health and Safety Reps. The Health and Safety Committee is held at the end of the Sector Partnership Forum meetings.
This years plan was to work on the action plan from the Staff Survey results and looking at areas to improve health and safety for staff in the workplace using datix reports.
Partnership was embedded in Aberdeenshire but there was not enough staff side reps and more were required to communicate better with staff and get staff issues to the forum. The Partnership Forum agenda was being restructured in line with the Staff Governance Standards.
There was then a discussion about recruitment of health and safety representatives and the need to ensure that they get time off to undertake their role properly.
While interim arrangements had been put in place, a review of health and safety arrangements was being undertaken by Vince Shields following John Brett, Head of Health and Safety, leaving. Pauline Strachan was to receive an update on this by the end of February.
Joan Anderson explained that there was an NHS Grampian Health and Safety Representatives Group and that they offered some support to all Health and Safety Reps across Grampian whether they were accredited trade union or employee safety reps.
She explained that accredited health and safety reps were trained and supported by their organisation but employee safety reps could find themselves with a lack of structure so before the organisation decided to promote staff volunteering to be employee safety reps they would need a structure of training and ongoing support.
4
* / NHS Grampian Chief Executive Role in the delivery of Health and CareFramework and 2020 Vision and the direction of travel in 2012
Richard Carey gave a short presentation on his role in the delivery of Health and Care Framework and the 2020 vision and the direction of travel in 2012 (slides attached).
A lot of work had gone into the health care system in Grampian over several years, from 2002 shifting the balance of care and more recently how the health care rather than being done in stages is a whole system where the individual receives individual care and treatment.
It was important that the wider organisation understood the organisational priorities and what the future would look like so there could be communication with staff, local authorities, government, etc.
NHS Grampian now had a detailed set of plans to deliver an agreed model – 2020 vision. This was a transformational way to deliver unscheduled care. The emergency care centre was one element of this but it was about what the patient required apart from hospital admission. This was a major workstream which would be taken forward over the next few years.
The Health and Care Framework was very important work between all organisations offering seamless services. The Change Fund was available to help promote change to assist to keep people in their own homes and less reliance on traditional care models. This then would have a knock on effect to hospital services for the elderly.
Return appointments at Outpatient clinics could be reduced by using technology and different models of care.
A key role was to ensure the organisation had focus and clarity around these change implementation issues. The action plan would have clear actions required to move towards the new models of care.
The other role for the Chief Executive was day to day operational issues which was also hugely important.
A question was asked about the lack of accommodation and facilities to carry out particular services and the response was that with the squeeze in public sector spending there was a need to be smarter in using joint assets that already exist in public sector and other agencies.
Another question was about the Pathfinder project which was not along the same lines as the Health and Care Framework in which there was an understanding regarding disinvestment to reinvest? Richard Carey explained that the priority was to complete the Emergency Care Centre and Foresterhill site changes, the Aberdeen Village, reconfiguration of services at Forres around the new Forres Health Centre hub project, Woodend Hospital and Tayside which was reliant on another Board. Working on the Pathfinder project was a logical conclusion to use land we already own.
A concern was raised about how differently some of our partner organisations work from NHS. NHS Grampian worked well in partnership with staff side but other organisations currently did not use this model of working.
In order to aid redesign, temporary contracts were being given to staff to allow change to take place and there was a concern about who would get permanent posts when the change had taken place and what support the temporary contract person would get. It was suggested that secondments could possibly be a better way to make these changes. HR agreed to take this onboard.
A safe environment needed to be created for staff to allow change to take place and for their own development needs. / CR
5 / Minute of Last Meeting held on 15 December 2011
The minute of the last meeting held on 15 December 2011 was approved.
6 / Matters Arising
None.
7 / Improving the Public’s Health and Reducing Inequalities
Health and Social Care Change Fund
Heather Kelman gave a brief update on progress with the Health and Social Care Change Fund. At the end of 2011/12 there was slippage on some projects and slippage of the funding was being managed forward to 2012/13. 2012/13 plans were going to the Scottish Government the next day to meet national deadlines. The Scottish Government would respond to the plans at the end of March.
Some projects had been implemented and financial change and disinvestment had taken place. A workshop was planned in March to get all the Sector and Mental Health Services plans together to take them forward.
The projects were developed in Partnership in the three areas of Health, Local Authorities and the private sector. Improvements were to be made to communications of this and it should be discussed at Sector Partnership Forums.
There were three joint commissioning strategies. These were:
· Over 75’s, resources within Local Authorities and private sectors, need, growth of the population over 10 years, strategic plan and how do services look by 2020. Work was ongoing and Moray hoped to go forward for consultation in May as they had assistance from Oxford Brooks, the others would be ready for September for consultation. Strategies had to be completed by next year but the September 2012 deadline was to ensure the Health and Care Framework was service led and not structure led.
· Communication Framework was based on the needs of NHS Grampian. It was a joint initiative so was out for consultation to the local authorities to ensure one communication framework would be used by all.
· Integration of Health and Social Care. At national level the aim was to create seamless decision making to decide on services required for patients. Single decision making was aimed for and locally trying to get the four Chief Executives together to reach agreement on giving a lead on this issue.
A workshop was planned for the next Friday to design a progress report to consult and involve people, to get stakeholder engagement and a structure to do this.
There were seven workstreams involved. Workforce and HR and Budgets were the two main ones.
On all seven there were issues of workforce and partnership working. NHS Grampian had tried to include Partnership Reps in meetings but this was not the way the local authorities worked. There was a need for rules for transition time on policies. The Scottish Government would be asked to lead on this. There were national PIN Policies for NHS Staff which differ for Local Authority staff.
The communication framework would cover everything to do with integration.
Heather Kelman was part of the national Health and Care Framework Group and was happy to discuss any of these issues further with anyone.
A concern was raised about Marie Curie Nurses moving from the agreed out of hours work they were doing to general community work when there were no clients of the right category at that time. It was noted that care had to be taken not to get into staffing difficulties. Joint commissioning strategies should ensure the plan was correct for staffing needs. HR agreed to take this onboard. / CR
8 / Developing the Workforce and Empowering Staff
a. Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF) Update
Clare Ruxton updated the group on KSF. She reported that the number of signed off reviews on eKSF were below planned trajectory. The Delivery Team had been made aware of this and were working to address the issues at a local level. Helen Cheyne would present a detailed report of progress for the March meeting. On a positive note, improvement on the statutory/mandatory training uptake, could be as a result of the e.packages going live so increase in PDP Activity
There was a discussion about ensuring staff are completing statutory and mandatory training required. There was still an issue about staff who receive logins but do not have access to computers and therefore their login lapses.
b. Workforce Planning
Clare Ruxton reported that Safe Affordable Workforce (SAW) project was being integrated into workforce planning. The Workforce Team were assisting sectors/ departments in gathering information to enable their annual workforce plans to be written.
Sharon Duncan stated there was a need to check which of the original SAW redesigns were still incomplete and why progress had been delayed. This would be picked up through the SAW Steering Group.
The SAW Organisational Change Implementation Principles Number 5 final paper had been circulated previously for information. This paper was to give guidance to staff.
Careers in Transition training was still ongoing. 52 staff had attended. There was a need to advertise the course more as it was very useful for staff to attend it.
Gordon Stephen reported that the Scottish Partnership Forum (SPF) had a presentation from Right Management, the company who worked with NHS Grampian on Careers in Transition training, and had recognised NHS Grampian for all the work it put into the development of the training.
c. Policies:
i. Career Break Policy for approval
There had been minor changes made to the Career Break Policy and these were approved.
There was discussion about the length of time a Career Break could be taken and assurance was given that when the reviewed PIN Policy and Practice on Career Breaks was issued there would be a full review of the local policy by the GAPF Policies and Procedures Sub-Group.
ii. Application of Secondment Policy