Apologies for the delay in loading the March report, I have had a busy period in relation to my own personal professional practice. Having done 30 years of NHS service I was fortunate in that my Trust has a rewards policy that gave me a choice of this year, either £350 or an extra 5 days leave, in recognition of the milestone. So I decided that the leave was the best option and intending to put this extra time to good use I was able to obtain a place on the University of Sunderland Independent Prescribing course hence I have been revising hard for the required OSCE in April.
In relation to Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists work continues in many Trusts and hospitals in relation to on-call. This will be a difficult process and it appears that most Trusts have gone for an extension to allow further negotiation. Obviously GHP/Unite is not the only union to have pharmacist members and we have been asked as the representative body with formal negotiation rights within the NHS whether we can work collectively with other bodies. Our position is quite clear and we are always supportive of joint working either on professional or industrial issues as that is in the best interests of all pharmacists employed in the managed sector so we have agreed the following statement.
GHP and the locally accredited representatives are working with colleagues in Unite, who have recognition for the negotiation of terms and conditions under Agenda for Change, to promote the interests of pharmacist members. We recognise the principles of equality mean any agreement must be organisation wide, fair, equitable and not favour, discriminate or prejudice any particular staff group. We are sure and we believe that all accredited representatives would try to take into the account the views of all staff in reaching any agreement but we acknowledge they are ultimately bound by the democratic mandate from and accountability to the local members that elected them. We accept that whilst we cannot represent, negotiate or be accountable to members of another Trade Union there is nothing to stop informal gathering of views of those members or indeed any non-union members providing we acknowledge that the basis of our final direction and ultimate accountability is to GHP/Unite members alone.
Sadly on the industrial front the Pay Review Body has noted in this years report that there is wide variation in vacancy rates across the UK – with no consistent geographical pattern – and the fact is a significant minority of employers do not have vacancies in Bands 6 and 7. Hence they believe that for these employers, a nationally-mandated additional payment would be an unnecessary cost at a time when the wider NHS budget is under severe pressure. Therefore they did not recommend a national RRP for pharmacists in Bands 6 and 7, although they will continue to monitor the position. They did however highlight some ongoing concerns. Namely that some employers continue to have very high vacancy rates for junior pharmacists, which has a detrimental effect on service delivery, and the morale and workload of staff covering these vacancies. They noted that registered pharmacists in the NHS and hospitals remain on the Migration Advisory Committee’s list of shortage occupations. Therefore they continued to encourage employers to take advantage of the facility to pay short-term local RRPs where appropriate. This is something negotiators may wish to raise locally in those affected Trusts especially in discussing transitional arrangements for pharmacists in relation to on-call. Our thanks for many years of on-going work go to the Chair of Terms and Conditions Dave Thornton and Sian Errington, Barrie Brown and Karen Reay from Unite. A special mention must go to Karen who as National Officer for Health has been highly supportive of GHP and has attended all the GHP conferences to meet members and discuss concerns. Karen has now taken up the post of Regional Secretary for North East Yorkshire and Humberside - so welcome home Karen. Fiona Farmer has taken up responsibilities at a National level for GHP within Unite and we are pleased she is able to attend this year’s conference in Nottingham on 20th – 22nd May.
Members of GHP Council continued in March to work on a professional level and Vilma Gilis attended a meeting on the transfer of care and working with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and others on agreeing a set of principles to update the 2006 Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) guidance on discharge and transfer planning. This is called Moving Patients, Moving Medicines, Moving Safely. The guidance outlined in detail the risks to patient safety from medicines errors when patients transfer from one care setting to another and gave examples of local approaches to improve discharge and transfer planning. Roisin O’Hare has also being involved with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society with many specialist groups in a range of discussions on partnership working the result of which you will have seen in the Pharmaceutical Journal. Although we decided with the RPS that due to our trade union links we should not sign a formal partnership agreement we remain in full support and will work RPS to reach a separate agreement or understanding to show our commitment to collaborating and co-operating with partners from across the profession to advance pharmacy. We both believe that when we work together we are stronger as a profession. GHP will therefore remain within the discussion groups and continue working in partnership with the RPS and the partner specialist groups.
We also continued our work in responding on your behalf to Governments, Health Departments and Regulators both in writing and through 1:1 meetings. For example I have been invited to discuss a number of issues with the General Pharmaceutical Council, but in particular the standards and policies for registered premises. We will be raising a number of issues, in particular the concerns in relation to potential multiple inspections by other regulators (like MHRA, CQC) and possible duplications or more importantly possible variation and conflict in requirements for hospital premises. We will be seeking clarity on the role of the Chief Pharmacist and potential requirements of Superintendent Pharmacists and how the monitoring of Section 10 exemptions and the preparation of IV drugs will be maintained. We also have minor concerns on the lack of expertise and experience of the previous regulatory regime’s inspectors in relation to hospital practice and we still have a fundamental problem with how the public will understand that some hospital pharmacies require registration and one set of standards but others do not. The above issues highlight how the simplistic view of some organisations that states issues like premises regulation, medicine supply including wholesaling and dispensing supervision only affect community pharmacy and you can separate out hospital pharmacy is patently not true and shows a lack of insight into current hospital practice. The formal written responses for the month of March include Recognition of Professional Qualifications Directive (Directive 2005/36/EC), A new value-based approach to the pricing of branded medicines, Consultation on Amendments to the Initial Registration Requirements for Pharmacy Technicians, Liberating the NHS – Developing the healthcare workforce, DH Healthy Lives, Healthy People: Consultation on the Funding and Commissioning Routes for Public Health , ARM 73 Ibusol Lotion Request to Reclassify Product from POM to P
Continuing from February’s Council discussions on the Modernising Pharmacy Careers proposals on the undergraduate degree - our views will be feed back via Richard Cattell who attends as a representative of GHP. There are lots of issues that arise but from a pure educational perspective the two problems that arise from the existing course are (new words for me) lack of contextualisation – or ability to put the theory they learn into practice – and poor professional socialisation – lack of acquiring the professional attitudes, values, skills and knowledge of a pharmacist - so they can come out of training not knowing who they are, where they fit into the healthcare team and what they can do within that team to improve patient care. Personally I believe there are many good suggestions such as linking and teaching the pure science only within a practice context, potentially intercalating similarly to medical dental and veterinary students with another specialist final year degree course suitable for industry, hospital or primary care and including a supplementary prescribing qualification within the basic 5 year degree. However the main solutions of altering the pre-registration year or moves to small group or problem based learning are less important than ensuring we get them out into professional practice early and frequently and throughout their degree course. Our medical colleagues will have many clinical placements as part of their degree but they still have to undertake a final pre-registration year. We will be maintaining a watchful brief on how the existing salaries of pre-registration pharmacists are addressed and how any changes are integrated with graduates registered under existing degrees and what are the potential grand-parenting arrangements.
The work for the 7th GHP/UKCPA conference has continued, led by Roisin O’Hare, and we are still trying to contact as many previous council members as possible to invite them to the commemorative dinner on Friday 20th May. This event is in recognition of the fact that this is the 50th GHP conference taking place as did the 1st in Nottingham. Invites will also be available on a limited basis - due to room constraints - to all GHP members attending conference. If you are interested please contact Vilma Gilis especially if you have any memorabilia from any of the previous 50 conferences, which can be added to the Guild stand. In relation to the conference I also had the pleasure on contacting the GHP Gold and Silver Medallists who will be announced at the Conference Dinner and to contact Jean Curtis who previously worked as Professional Secretary to invite her to conference in recognition of the award of Honorary Membership of GHP.
Equally importantly for administrative and organisational reasons we held a teleconference at Executive level where we discussed and actioned items in relation to the Conference in May, progress on on-call negotiations, the publication of the 2010 Annual report and the progress in relation to addressing the inequity of VAT application to in-house providers. Our concerns on VAT, which will be a major topic for 2011, I outlined in the March edition of Guild Matters which is available in Clinical Pharmacist and on the GHP website.
Finally ending on a personal note I have been very fortunate in being awarded a Fellowship by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society for services to the profession so my thanks are to those that nominated me and to the panel who considered me deserving of such recognition.
David Miller - GHP President March 2011