APPROVED
NHS GRAMPIAN
Minute of the Grampian Area Partnership Forum (GAPF)
held on Thursday 19 April 2012 at 2.00pm
in the Conference Room, Summerfield House
Present:
Sharon Duncan, Employee Director (Chairperson)
Richard Carey, Chief Executive
Mike Adams, UCATT
Jim Clark, GMB
Frances Dunne, Service Manager, Aberdeen City CHP
Ian Francis, CSP
Alistair Grant, RCN
Alan Gray, Director of Finance
Laura Gray, Director of Corporate Communications
Jenny Greener, Non-Executive Director
Alison Hardy, Clinical Nurse Manager
Annie Ingram, Director of Workforce
Liz Laing, BAOT (deputy for Sandra-Dee Masson)
Steven Lindsay, Unite
Martin McKay, UNISON
John Miller, Communications Manager (deputy for Laura Gray)
Gary Mortimer, General Manager Facilities and Estates
Jason Nicol, Senior Service Manager (deputy for Frances Dunne)
Anne Ross, Head of Performance & Quality Improvement
Clare Ruxton, Deputy Director of Workforce
Kirsten Sawers, RCM
Vincent Shields, General Manager Acute Services
Mike Scott, Chair of the Staff Governance Committee
Pauline Strachan, Chief Operating Officer
Keith Thomson, Interim Health and Safety Lead
Joan Anderson, Partnership Support Officer
Board Meeting
12 06 12
Open Session
Item 9.2
In Attendance:
Birgit Stav, Trond Helland, Roger Heiml, Norwegian Trades Union Council
Christine Cameron, Network Manager and Leigh Dawson, Communications Officer - for item 4
Graeme Smith, Head of Modernisation and Kate Livock, Project Manger - for item 7a
Janet Fraser, Dignity at Work Officer - for item 9
Item Subject
1
Apologies
Action
Apologies were received from Jane Starley, BIOS (no deputy), Sandy Dustan,
General Manager, Aberdeenshire (Mike Ogg deputised), Duncan Stephen,
ACB (no deputy), Sandra-Dee Masson, BAOT(Liz Laing deputised), Eileen
Grant, GHP (no deputy), Deirdre McIntyre, SOCAP (Rachael Little deputised),
Elinor Smith, Director of Nursing (no deputy), Bill Cowling, Project Manager
Mental Health (no deputy available)
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Item Subject
2
Minute of Last Meeting held on 15 March 2012
The minute of the last meeting held on 15 March 2012 was approved.
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Matters Arising
None.
4
Know Who To Turn To – Staff Awareness
Christina Cameron and Leah Dawson came along to update the forum on the
work ongoing regarding the Know Who To Turn To project.
The Know Who To Turn To brand was developed following the receipt of
funding from the Scottish government in 2009. The project began in a single
area before being rolled out across the whole of NHS Grampian area; Scottish
national links were also further developed. The project team have identified
the critical role that NHS staff play in disseminating the information contained
in the project and by helping to change the habits and culture of those seeking
health assistance.
The current plan is to maintain the format of the brand, pitched at all levels of
staff, in a relatively brief format, available for translation into other languages
and media. The original booklet has now been updated and was tabled. An 8
minute NHS Grampian DVD had been produced and was shown to the forum.
A number of approaches were considered by the project team and it was
agreed that use of mandatory would be inappropriate. The project team are
therefore promoting this through a number of fora and the first of these was
GAPF. The team asked GAPF membership to assist with disseminating the
information to all staff groups in the organisation. Anyone with suggestions on
how to do this to contact Christina Cameron, Leah Dawson or Sharon Duncan.
Emails: Christina.cameron@nhs.net; l.dawson@nhs.net;
Sharon.duncan@nhs.net
If everyone who worked for NHS Grampian took this to their families this would
reach ¼ of those living in Grampian if they also let their friends know, this
figure would rise to at least half the total population in Grampian
Christina and her Team were congratulated for all the work they had
undertaken on this project to date, the forum were very impressed with the
presentation.
5
Norwegian Visitors
Sharon Duncan welcomed three visitors from the Norwegian Trades Unions
Council to observe the meeting. They had been invited to the forum by
UNISON and had a particular interest in health care.
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Action
6
Developing the Workforce and Empowering Staff
a. Director of Workforce
Annie Ingram had been asked to give a brief introduction as the new Director
of Workforce for NHS Grampian. Annie explained she had been in the NHS
for around 25 years in workforce related posts. She thought Partnership
worked and was the way we should do things. Annie had previously worked
with the North of Scotland Regional Planning Group so worked with all six
NHS North Scotland Boards and had previously met some of the NHS
Grampian staff during this time. Her work was with remote and rural
healthcare in Scotland including the islands.
Annie felt it was too early to be able to know what her approach to the role
would be, but confirmed that she felt Partnership was well embedded in a lot of
parts of NHS Grampian and that she wanted NHS Grampian to be the
Employer of Choice. She felt that by making NHS Grampian the place to be
would attract and retain the best people to come and work for it and that this
would in turn ensure safe sustainable patient care.
b. Workforce Planning (inc Safe Affordable Workforce (SAW))
Annie Ingram explained that a paper had been presented to the Board from
the Overview Steering Group. SAW would continue for the rest of this year
and would be embedded into workforce planning over time. There was a need
to align budgets and that the workforce plan to be developed would be an
evolving, working document constantly being updated rather than a once a
year production.
c.
GAPF Away Day Feedback and next plans
Anne Ross reported that the last Away Day evaluation had been previously
circulated and on the whole attendees felt it had been successful, especially
the presentation from Nick Bacon.
A proposal for next events had also been previously circulated. This included
having 4 events aligned to HR Manager areas e.g. Aberdeenshire/Moray;
Aberdeen City/Corporate; Mental Health/Facilities and Acute.
The events planning would be led by the HR Manager and the Staff Side
Whole Time Representative for the area in conjunction with the Sector
Partnership Forum for the areas.
GAPF representatives would be asked to attend a minimum of two of the four
events which would be half day sessions held in September which would fit
with the publication of the new Staff Governance Standards and this plus the
2020 vision could be on the programme.
The idea was to get greater engagement with the Sectors allowing them to
invite who they wanted to the events and to enable others to attend.
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There were concerns about splitting up the events and losing the NHS
Grampian aspect to the away days. It was thought the next event would be
one big one and therefore cover all issues and all Sectors together.
The events could be tied in with other events in the Sectors at the same time.
There was a suggestion to do an evaluation of local partnership similar to the
one Nick Bacon had done for NHS Scotland either as part of the away days or
a separate piece of work.
The Promoting Partnership Group agreed to take away all the comments and
develop more detail around the proposal and engage with Sectors in the
planning arrangements.
Promoting
Partnership
Group
d. Staff Governance Committee (SGC)
Mike Scott, Chair of the Staff Governance Committee, updated the group on
the work of the Committee. The group were planning a workshop which would
include Board members and others necessary to consider the staff
governance issues around all the changes in healthcare.
The Staff Governance Standard was currently being reviewed and the first
draft included a statement that along with rights staff have responsibilities. This
was welcomed by the committee. Mike Scott welcomed the new Employee
Director Sharon Duncan as a new member of the committee and also as a
member of the remuneration committee.
Sharon had suggested that the SGC receive staff stories along the lines of the
patient stories the Board receives, to hear what has happened and how to
learn from it. It was left with Sharon and the other Staff Side Representatives
to take this forward.
Mike Scott said the SGC had been pleased to note that the attendance figures
showed that NHS Grampian were the best for attendance among the 8 biggest
Boards in Scotland.
The SGC discussed the Boards identified risks and had decided to drill down
into each one and see what work the committee should be doing around it.
Information on risks came from a variety of sources e.g. Datix, workforce
planning, attendance monitoring, etc.
Richard Carey explained the roles of the SGC and the GAPF so that the
visitors at the meeting could understand the relevance of one to the other.
The People Strategy was to be reviewed and the name may change to include
2020 as this was the agreed strategy and brand for all NHS to be working
towards.
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SD/Staff
Side
7
Delivering Safe, Effective & Timely Care in the Right Place
a. Modernisation Unit
Graeme Smith had been invited to attend GAPF meetings to regularly update
on the Modernisation agenda.
i.
Emergency Care Centre (ECC)
Kate Livock, Project Manager for the ECC attended the meeting to update on
progress.
The project was going very well and the construction was to be finished by
June with all the snagging to be finished by June/July which was earlier than
expected. This should make for a much easier move into the building for staff.
The mantra for unscheduled care was “Right Place Right Time”. Every
opportunity would be taken to move unscheduled care to planned care.
Communications would be enhanced with all health care providers and
appropriate to clinical decision making.
There was an Emergency Care Network in the North of Scotland Planning
Board which Reolf Dijkhuizen was taking forward, this included integrating out
of hours primary care service and accident and emergency services and
working on integrating staff so they had skills in both spheres of the role.
Support would be given for patients to be treated at home rather than in
hospital, where appropriate.
Consistency of approach was aimed at when a patient arrived at the front door
regardless of where they came from e.g. ambulance or GP referral etc. Trying
to remove steps in the patient pathway which do not add value so the patient
would go directly to the service they required.
Kate held up a floor plan of the building and explained how they have
organised it in such a way as to keep the public and patients in separate lifts,
clean and dirty items in separate parts of the building and each floor a similar
layout to ensure staff know where to find things even if moved to a different
department.
The very detailed process of moving staff in was being overseen by Dianne
Donald, Project Manager. Staff involvement would be required and more
detailed reports would be taken to GAPF to note at future meetings. The
discussion at GAPF would be about process rather than individuals issues and
any problems arising would be deferred to the appropriate project group to find
out facts and deal with it there rather than GAPF being involved. GAPF would
ensure that issues were dealt with in the right place. Meetings had been set
up to look at workforce needs. Priorities had been set and it was essential that
any problems which arose were dealt with promptly.
There was visit planned to ECC immediately following the May GAPF meeting
at 4pm. Anyone from the forum who wished a visit to contact Joan Anderson
to ensure their name was on the list.
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ALL
i.
Other Projects
Graeme explained that there were quite a number of specific things to do
related to unscheduled care which included the ECC but was broader than
ECC alone. There was a need to ensure that not all unscheduled care was
directed to the ECC and therefore there was a need to provide unscheduled
care in the community. This would improve the health and wellbeing in the
community.
Ambulatory care and outpatients are seen in the 2020 vision to be radically
different from now. Work will be done towards reducing the number of return
patients seen at outpatients departments by using more technology.
Integration is a big issue in both the need to integrate health and social care
but also to integrate community and hospital care. One way to do this is
through developing a cluster approach with primary and social care. There is
already a programme to develop clusters in Aberdeen City. Aberdeenshire
have formed areas which are the same as clusters and Moray has one cluster
which was called a GP federation. These cluster areas will be encouraged
and consistency of how they interface with acute sector will be worked on.
The cluster areas should be working on the same priorities around
unscheduled care. There were three broad areas to be working on and action
plans were being developed.
*
Graeme tabled a paper (attached) to simplify the unscheduled/planned care
and all that relates to it. When looking at workforce for the future there was a
need to be clear about plans for unscheduled and planned care.
Graeme asked the forum members to feedback to him on how easily this was
understood and if everyone could understand it. Feedback to
graemesmith@nhs.net
Graeme would regularly attend GAPF to update on progress with these
projects.
b. Health and Safety in NHS Grampian
*
Keith Thomson explained that he was in post on an interim basis to June 2012
meantime. He tabled a paper updating on current issues (attached).
The health and safety audit being developed by Lynda Sime, Health and
Safety Auditor, was about what the organisation expects staff to do and what
is in legislation. There was a need for managers to volunteer to trial the audit
to ensure all the glitches where removed before it went live. Anyone wishing
to volunteer to contact keith.thomson1@nhs.net.
Stewart Rogerson had been nominated as NHS Grampian Fire Officer and a
number of deputies would be appointed. A programme was in place for the
high risk areas.
Keith was doing some training for NHS Orkney and this was all being
organised.
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The forum expressed a real concern around health and safety and the number
of health and safety representatives. The Occupational Health and Safety
Committee would be discussing this issue to see who it could be taken
forward. Health and safety needed a common sense approach and work
would be done along with Keith Thomson to find a sustainable way forward.
Health and safety was everyone’s business and therefore everyone was asked
to assist in the process and work together.
There was a question of whether funding would be available to sort out a
problem if it is identified. It was agreed that priorities would be worked out and
funding would be found where necessary for the agreed priorities.
It was agreed that it was better to be proactive than reactive. A few events
were being planned for European Health and Safety Week beginning 22
October across Sectors and a number of health and safety topics would be
taken to staff at that time.
A big issue around health and safety representatives was getting released
time for them to undertake their role. Managers need to be aware of the
benefits of having health and safety representatives and the more health and
safety is embedded into the organisation the easier it would be for all.
There was a suggestion that we copy an initiative from the oil industry and at
the beginning of meetings take a “safety moment” and everyone would quickly
say what they had done to improve health and safety that day.
ALL
Forum members were asked to reflect on all the issues raised at the meeting
and remind ourselves of the importance of health and safety. Everyone was
thanked for their contributions.
Improving Efficiency, Productivity and Sustainability
a. NHS Financial Report Update – Alan Gray
The Finance Report was not quite ready and would be finalised and circulated
shortly. NHS Grampian broke even at the end of the Financial year and this
was down to working together in Partnership and all should be pleased with
what had been achieved.
Richard Carey stated that the break even position would not be possible
without the continuing commitment of all staff in NHS Grampian, managers
staff and staff side colleagues. Next year the challenges continue and it will be
necessary to keep working together to find ways to meet the financial targets
set by the Scottish Government.
It was noted that the pension increase for those staff affected by it would be
effective as of 1 April and this will be seen in payslips at the end of April 2012.
b. Financial and General Reports from Sectors – General Managers
As it was the first month of the year no reports were asked for from General
Managers. It was noted that mostly things were going well.
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c.
Redeployment Reports
Clare Ruxton reported that 4 new people had joined the Redeployment
Register and 8 had come off so the numbers were still low. The process had
been reviewed to make it smarter. Clare would take an SBAR to the next
meeting to report the setting up of a new database which would do a lot of
work for the group.
9
*
Stress Management Action Plan/Employee Stress Management Advisory
Group
Janet Fraser had been invited along to discuss Stress Management and
covered what stress was, the remit of the Employee Stress Management
Advisory Group (ESMAG) and the Stress Management Policy and Standards.
Papers were tabled on these (attached).
The GAPF members were asked to take this information to their networks of
Partnership and Health and Safety to raise awareness of the Stress
Management Policy and Standards and the work of ESMAG.
Janet explained that there was a link with Occupational Health Service (OHS)
via a representative of OHS being a member of ESMAG. ESMAG was jointly
chaired by Clare Ruxton, Deputy Director of HR and a Staff Side
Representative.
Annie Ingram asked for clearer links between this and the health and safety
group
Janet requested an increased presence from management from Sectors on
ESMAG as management have a responsibility in taking forward the policy and
standards.
ALL
Richard Carey thanked Janet for her very useful presentation and agreed that
everyone would take away the issues and think about how to improve input
into the management of stress at work.
9
Any Other Competent Business
None.
10
Communication to Organisation from GAPF
Health and safety was the main theme of the GAPF meeting and the
importance of health and safety in achieving safe patient care was stressed. It
was acknowledged that health and safety is everyone's business and that
NHS Grampian needed to make a concerted effort to improve the
organisational approach. This would include a refreshed approach at the
health & safety committee, improved management commitment and an
increase in the number of H&S representatives, across NHS Grampian. All
staff were encouraged to become involved, even in small things to improve the
health & safety of all.
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Date and Time of Next Meeting
The next full meeting will be held on 2pm to 5pm Wednesday 16 May 2012
Seminar Room 2, Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital, Foresterhill. Visit to
Emergency Care Centre 4pm.
Email: joananderson@nhs.net
Telephone: (01224) 556372
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