The September Council meeting was held in Belfast in part to provide us with an opportunity to view the venue for the 2012 8th Joint conference with the UKCPA. For some council members it is equally important to visit the various watering holes that are close to the Conference Hotel. Personally I was impressed in how easy it is to get to Belfast, the City or George Best Airport is only 10 minutes and about £10 away by taxi from the hotel and accessible from most mainland cities with flights costing under £30 one way if you are organised. The International airport, which is used by Easyjet is further away but has link transport to and from the conference hotel.
I travelled over from the BPC in London – more of which later - to Belfast the night before but did not stay in the Europa Hotel, but one of the smaller and Unite approved hotels nearby. This reminds me that it is the intention of UKCPA and GHP that to potentially reduce costs of the conference we will provide a day rate and members can then choose – should they wish – to stay in less expensive accommodation, although the conference hotel has provided a very competitive rate to ensure the 3 day conference including dinner in the Titanic exhibition and accommodation will be only £485 for members.
At the Council meeting there was a session to develop ideas for a future conference call with UKCPA colleagues on ideas for plenary and workshop sessions based on highlighting the often-unseen work undertaken by pharmacists in improving patient care and medication safety. In addition we discussed preparations for the Group Secretaries day in November including expanding the invitations to a number of partner organisations representing pharmacists and technicians. We also noted that at the next Council meeting it would be the elections of the next GHP Executive and the last meeting of the current Council before elections in December. Details of the election including nomination forms will appear on the website after that Council meeting if members wish to stand for one of the regional member positions.
Council meetings, which take place 5 times a year, also provide an opportunity for the whole of council to contribute to any outstanding consultations, assist in prioritising responses and identifying those council members who will be leading on particular consultations. In practice most of the work on consultation responses are done electronically co-ordinated by the Chair of Practice and the Professional Secretary. All consultation responses are published on the website. In September we completed the final response to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills Higher Education consultation on “Putting Students at the Heart of the System”. This is quite relevant in view of the changes to pharmacy education being proposed by Modernising Pharmacy Careers. Other responses included one to the GPhC on how they will ensure internal equality and diversity in their operations, which as it was based on standard practice was a relatively simple and non-controversial process. The final consultation response was to the European Commission on the Freedom of Movement of Professional. In could be argued that other organisations could respond to these consultations, such as the Royal Pharmaceutical Society , Pharmacy Voice and other mainly contractor organisations, however it is interesting to note the differences in views and emphasis in the various body responses and we feel it is important to ensure that hospital and primary care pharmacist views are fully expressed and represented.
As you can imagine the topic of pension reform and on-call was also discussed at the meeting and as we held the meeting in the Regional Office of Unite Dave Thornton and myself took the opportunity to meet with Northern Ireland colleagues on the on-call group to have full and frank discussions on on-call. The question of discontinuing on-call was raised and the advice given that whether staff can opt out of any agreement will depend on their local contracts and job descriptions and cannot be dealt with generically but if contracted then any withdrawal could be viewed as a breach of contract and leave members open to disciplinary action. The position of those on voluntary schemes is more difficult and they can in theory provided they comply with any notice period withdraw from a scheme. Specific advice should be taken from Unite officials as the issue is complicated by custom and practice, ability of employers to issue new contracts and the effect on colleagues who may be in a different position. Members can always make a request rather than formally discontinue their on-call commitments within their local procedures and enter local negotiations but apart from recruitment and retention payments any remuneration for on-call must remain fair and equitable across the organisation.
Whilst on the topic of on-call I was also asked this month for a response to a PDA campaign to support 30 pharmacists seeking increased on-call payments and we stated we welcomed another Trade Union assisting in the process of supporting hospital pharmacists and acknowledged their role to support their members to reach a fair, equitable and legally justifiable outcome across a NHS organisation. We wished them every success in their battle for these pharmacist members and hope if they successfully resolved the issues we can identify and recognise the work undertaken so that other hospital pharmacists could learn from the process.
However I also commented that as the nationally recognised representatives for pharmacists in the NHS, GHP continues to work with UNITE at a national level, negotiating pharmacist profiles and directly changing the policy and guidance issued through NHS staff council. At a local level through its accredited members on local negotiating groups we work within the existing consultative frameworks to reach acceptable and achievable outcomes in line with equal pay requirements of Agenda for Change
As Guild President I attended the British Pharmaceutical Conference, which was held in Goldsmith’s College at New Cross Gate in London. Due to a family event in Liverpool I was not able to attend the Sunday session but arrived for the conference dinner in Central London and a re-acquaintance with the experience of student accommodation out at the college that night. The Monday session involved a long plenary session with keynote speeches from Earl Howe, Minister for Pharmacy in England, Keith Ridge Chief Pharmacist for England and Helen Gordon RPS Chief Executive. The afternoon was spent networking and attending a workshop on whitlse blowing before catching the flight to Belfast for the GHP Council meeting.
After a brief evening at home I returned again to London the next day to attend a stakeholder session to discuss the preliminary findings of the RPS/PSNI commissioned independent evaluation of the impact of the Responsible Pharmacist regulations. This survey of around 2000 pharmacists provided a number of interesting points that in my view, but not those of all attending. However as it was under “Chatham house rules” I can only discuss my views. The results for me showed that for most hospital pharmacists the regulations had not affected their professional working practice although some saw them as an unnecessary bureaucracy. The full report including those points raised at this stakeholder day will be published before the end of the year after consideration by both organisations by which time we will respond accordingly.
There was still time outside of these meetings for a number of teleconferences one was with UKCPA colleagues as discussed earlier putting the almost final touches to next year’s conference. In addition Richard Cattell and I also held a teleconference with the RPS on the development of hospital standards ahead of a wider stakeholder event on 4th October. We agreed on the need to agree what are the standards to achieve and what they are intended to deliver for the whole of hospital pharmacy and that it is important that they are evidence based and applicable in every locality, organisational type or speciality. Importantly they would define a professional or quality service not solely a minimum or safe system as required by the regulators.
At the end of September I attended two events in relation to my role as a Chief Pharmacist that had some links with activity that I have undertaken in behalf of GHP. I attended a SHA stakeholder event on the new contract of targeted MURs and more interestingly the NMS or New medicine Service. I was particularly impressed with the evidence that underpins the NMS presented by Professor Nick Barber, who amongst other things is the current GHP Gold Medallist. The second event was an opportunity to address the new entrants to Sunderland University, with other pharmacists from within my organisation, outlining the various hospital career paths and future opportunities available and also as pharmacists equally importantly to welcome them into the profession.
One thing that I had wished I had more time to get involved is an initiative being drawn together by a number of pharmacists and technicians under the banner “one profession” its goals are
- To break down the barriers between different sectors of the profession .
- To ensure that all pharmacists in whichever sector they work, have the same opportunity to positively influence patient care.
- To give pharmacists a greater understanding and respect for the different sectors - hence allowing better patient care - especially when patients transfer between care settings.
- To promote the knowledge of different work environments to enable pharmacists to have a wider choice of careers.
- To support the possibility of portfolio working or being able to move from one sector to another.
- To ensure that when a problem or issue affects one sector, other sectors can support and help by means of greater understanding.
- To bring pharmacists together.”
Unfortunately there are only so many hors in the day but I wish the group every success in moving forward on these goals.
NB Finally for the record I am informed that the surrounding “watering holes” around the Europa Hotel were particularly well received, but personally whilst I am in the “I love Marmite camp” I am still not sure that the local black stuff is to my personal “prefer Yorkshire bitter” taste.