Fife NHS Board

MINUTES OF THE NHS FIFE AREA PARTNERSHIP FORUM HELD AT 1.30 P.M. ON FRIDAY, 24 MARCH 2006 IN THE COMMON ROOM, QMH

Present:

Mr S Fevre (Chair) Mr R McLeanMrs C Adamson (part time) Mrs S ManionMr B Anderson Mr R NisbetMr G Brechin Ms L Parsons (until 2.20 p.m.)

Mr J Docherty Mr R PettigrewDr F Elliot Dr C SaundersMs M Gardiner Ms L SheriffsMrs C Inwood Ms L SmallMrs V Irons Mr S WattMr G Keatings Mrs R WebsterMr J Leiper Mr J Wilson

In Attendance:

Mr D Archibald, Henderson LoggieMr G WagnerMrs J Millar

Mr Fevre advised that due to the Chancellor’s announcement, the presentation on “Home Computing Initiative” by Club IT had been cancelled.

Mr Fevre welcomed Mr Archibald from the External Auditors, Henderson Loggie.

Mr Fevre advised that Cathy McLean and Carmel Smith had both retired. He said that he would write to both of them on behalf of the APF to thank them for their contributions over the years.

ACTION

015/06 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Apologies were received from Ms BA Boyter, Dr S Clark, Ms B Cooke, Mr G Cunningham, Ms S Hutchins, Ms L Rosie, Ms A Nicol, Mr C Walker and Ms L Whelan.

016/06 MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING

The Minutes of the previous meetings held on 23 September 2005 and 25 November 2005 were approved as a true record.

The following amendments were required to the Minutes of the previous meeting on 27 January 2006:

Lynn Parsons’ apologies should have been noted;

Item 9 did not make sense and required to be re-worded;

Under T&Cs in Item 10, the first sentence should read JM/APF/24.03.06

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ACTION“…..that these are being agreed nationally.”

With the above amendments the Minutes of the meeting held on 27 January 2006 were approved as a true record. It was agreed that Mrs Webster would re-word the paragraph under item 9 and the minutes would be re-issued at the next meeting for information.

RW

017/06 MATTERS ARISING

(a) Home Computing Initiative

Mr Anderson stated that significant progress had been made and it had been hoped to present a recommendation today with a proposed launch in June but the Chancellor had intervened and removed the tax exemptions from the Home Computing Initiative (HCI) and this was no longer feasible.

He advised that Club IT intended to have some discussion with the Scottish Executive about tendering for the scheme but Mr Anderson said that the risks involved without the tax and National Insurance benefits seemed unappealing in terms of the work involved.

Ms Russell said that Club IT had indicated that there was a small window of opportunity until 6 April to get people signed up to the scheme. She said that Staffside had worked really hard on this initiative and wondered if there was any possibility they would be given that opportunity.

Mr Anderson said that this option had been looked at but for various good reasons including the extremely tight timescale, it was felt that this was not a realistic possibility.

Mr Fevre said that this should be communicated to staff, however it was Staffside’s intention to write to the Chancellor outlining their frustration at the decision.

Dr Saunders said that a number of other NHS Boards had been able to take up the initiative in the timescale and wondered if there were lessons to be learned.

Mrs Webster said that it had been made clear at the time why NHS Fife should not go forward with the scheme as it stood.

Discussion took place on the events that had held up the decision to take the initiative forward. Mrs Russell said that, once again, everything had been left to the last minute.

Mr Docherty was concerned that staff morale would

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ACTIONsuffer, especially the lower paid workers, with this disappointing outcome after the withdrawal of Historic Scotland and Fife Council benefits.

It was agreed that Mr Anderson and Mrs Russell would draw up a notice to staff informing them of the situation and how this was going to be taken forward.

(b) Endowments – General Fund

Mr Pettigrew reminded Members that it had been agreed to set up the Fife-wide General Fund from 1 April 2006 and it had been envisaged that the LPFs would be used to generate ideas for the use of the Fund.

The paper set out how this was intended to work and had been brought to the APF to ensure the Members were comfortable with the principles and then move it out to the LPFs.

Discussion took place on the proposals and Mr Pettigrew said that there was an ongoing debate around the Kingdom Lottery funding. Mr Fevre stated that there was a Lottery Committee meeting on 20 April when hopefully the position would be clarified.

The Forum approved the contents of the report.

(c) Staff Survey

Mr Fevre reported that the response to the survey had been disappointing at 21% and it was not expected that this would increase significantly. Mr Fevre said that the APF needed to link in with the Communications Department to establish better methods of communicating with staff.

Mrs Webster said that the whole issues of how the survey had been handled required to be looked at. There had been some issues in terms of how the electronic part had been dealt with and how and when the forms were disseminated to staff which might inform that debate.

The Forum noted the update.

(d) Shared Services Projects

(i) Logistics

Mr Pettigrew reminded Members of the proposed model to have a national distribution centre supplying all Boards and NHS Ayrshire & Arran had been identified as the first Board to use the interim distribution centre.

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ACTIONThe Full Business Case was still work in progress and issues that had been raised were being pursued. There had been questions around the anticipated savings generated from the project and what Boards themselves felt might be achieved

(ii) Financial Services

With regard to the Finance and Payroll aspect, there had been no decision on the Hub locations and the National Project Team were doing their best to get the decision accelerated. There were a number of very important issues in terms of statutory, regulatory technical and accounting and these would be addressed through a series of workshops with NHS staff.

There was a lot of activity ongoing around the HR and OD aspects of the project and the National Project Team was anxious to get a revised information pack out to staff, taking into account feedback that they had received. Mr Pettigrew said that this was a key change which, in itself, implied that it was becoming more definitive as time passed and was looking at the implications for the rest of the financial structures within Boards.

Overall, the Project Team had accepted that some of the bigger issues had not been handled as well as they might and were currently going through a catch up exercise, particularly around the corporate and financial governance issues. Mr Pettigrew said that a revised project plan and timetable was expected and it was likely that the FBC would come out towards the end of September 2006.

A meeting had been held with staff three weeks previous and there had been some call for a more definitive version of the plan. Mr Pettigrew said that they would obviously be brought up to speed as soon as possible.

The Forum noted the verbal update.

(e) Lynebank Phase IV Discharge

Mrs Manion advised that the principles in the Service Agreement between Fife Council and NHS Fife had been agreed and would be signed off shortly. As agreed at the last meeting, she advised that some nominations had been received from Staffside to join the Project Board and it was hoped that the Project Board would be complete in terms of the discharge by the end of the summer.

Mrs Manion said that they would now be looking at the JM/APF/24.03.06

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ACTIONongoing arrangements for the community service and how that would be supported jointly.

Mr Anderson said that meetings with each of the service providers had been held to try and drum up interest from staff, however there had been a fairly muted response. Fife Council taking on eight NHS Fife staff and a Secondment Agreement had been drafted from the PIN to be used as the basis with providers on which secondments attachments would be sought.

Mr Anderson said that the figures required to be re-worked to take account of trained and untrained nursing staff and it may be that there would be a shortage of trained staff although there would be 22 WTE untrained staff available. Mr Anderson said that a formal decision was required to decide that some staff were on ‘at risk’ categories and hopefully that decision would be made within the next few weeks.

Mr Fevre said that it appeared the risks for untrained staff were quite significant. Of the 22 WTE staff, eleven were on temporary contracts due to end in the summer. The previous use of ‘last in/first out’ would come into play and decisions would have to be made. Although there were available posts, the eleven staff whose contracts would end in the summer may not be able to take them up in the existing service.

Mrs Manion said that it was important that NHS Fife should secure any opportunities with the Ark Housing and Broad Street projects.

Mr Fevre asked for a decision on the “at risk” element and Mr Anderson stated that, in employment terms, the trained staff were not at risk but the untrained staff were at risk. He said however that even with the trained staff there may be some anxieties about the client group and this was an issue that had to be overcome.

Mr Fevre said that this was a complex problem and it would be useful to get all the issues mapped out in a paper.

Mr Anderson said that the situation was so fluid and to come back to this group with a paper in two months would not be appropriate.

Mrs Webster agreed and said that it came back to how the Redeployment Policy would be run. She said that she was not looking for a decision from the APF, merely giving an update on the position and assuring Members that this would be managed on an ongoing basis.

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ACTIONMr Fevre asked if the Dunfermline & West Fife LPF membership required to be enhanced to become more robust. Mrs Manion said that given the issues to discuss, it had been disappointing that the last meeting had not been quorate and it would be helpful if some way of enhancing the process without setting up other arrangements could be found.

Mr Anderson said that there was an open invitation to Staffside representatives. Discussion took place on the difficulty of attending these meetings and Mr Nesbit said that there required to be clarity and unity amongst all the CHPs and LPFs about how to engage people to attend these meetings.

Mr Fevre suggested that he and Mr Nesbit had a meeting outwith the Forum to discuss this issue.

SF/RN

The Forum noted the update.

018/06 FINANCE REPORT

Mr Pettigrew reported that the financial position at 28 February which would be reported to the NHS Fife Board the following week was as follows:

Overall there was an underspend of £5.6m; Operational Division were overspent by £600k, with energy

costs being a major factor; The combined CHPs were underspent by £1.0m; Family Health Services were overspent by £1.1m, the

major factors being the overspend on the GMS Contract, offset in part by the underspend on GP Prescribing;

Budgets held by Corporate Directorates were all underspent, with slippage and unused allocations the major factor.

The year-end forecast was an underspend of £5m but the provision for Agenda for Change was virtually certain to need to be increased. The outturn underspend would therefore fall within the Board’s 1% carry forward entitlement most of which was earmarked for commitments deferred into 2006/07.

Mr Pettigrew advised that the Local Delivery Plan had gone in draft to SEHD and attached to that were the financial projections for the next five years. They were still work in progress and would need to be translated into the local financial framework.

The Forum noted the verbal report.

019/06 SELF ASSESSMENT AUDIT TOOL

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ACTION

(a) 2005/06 Progress Update

Mrs Webster introduced the 2005/06 Action Plan. She advised that this would be the last visit by Mr Archibald and, on a personal basis, thanked him for his work and assistance in the past. She said that there had been a six month review which had assisted in the production of the final document.

Mr Fevre stated that the plan had been discussed with Staffside that morning and having had the six month paper had been really useful. The report formulated the work of LPFs and would provide evidence of performance within each CHP and the Operating Division. Mr Fevre said that there had been concerns about the process and it had been acknowledged that the process had not been as robust as in previous years.

Mr Brechin advised that the Violence & Aggression training pack had been launched earlier in the month but had not been explicitly mentioned. Mr Fevre said that this should be added.

Dr Saunders said that arrangements for the cascading of information for the Corporate Directorates had been omitted in the second paragraph on Page 1. Mrs Webster said that would be added.

Mr Archibald said that Mrs Webster had touched on the guidance that had been issued by Audit Scotland which gave all auditors a list of criteria outputs for the year. This was the first year that Staff Governance had not been a mandatory item but Henderson Loggie had opted to keep in the plan as it was seen as an important piece of work within their area. He said that he hoped it would be restored as a mandatory output next year.

Mr Archibald was conscious that they had not had the input to the document this year prior to it coming to the APF. The Action Plans had to lodged with SEHD by 31 March and Mr Archibald said that comments would therefore be required prior to that and any amendments incorporated.

Mr Docherty said that the external audit gave more confidence that the process had been handled properly and had proper direction.

The Forum noted the Staff Governance Action Plan: Progress Update March 2006 and the timescale for its submission to SEHD. This would include minor amendments from discussion today and comments from the External Auditors.

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ACTION(b) Action Plan 2006/07

Mr Fevre said that it would be interesting to get the LPF view on the 2006/07 document as they had tried to highlight what was thought of as an important role around the input for LPFs. He said that this would require some support from the APF and he, together with Ms Webster and other members would work with the LPFs to see what was required.

Discussion took place on the timescales included in the plan and Mr Fevre said that hopefully it was robust enough and included things that could actually be achieved.

The Forum noted the Action Plan and the timescale for its submission to SEHD which would include minor amendments and comments from the External Auditors.

020/06 LOCAL PARTNERSHIP FORUM DEVELOPMENT – KIRKCALDY & LEVENMOUTH CHP CONSTITUTION

Mr Fevre advised that all LPF Constitutions should be formally submitted to the APF for approval.

The Forum approved the Constitution.

021/06 REDEPLOYMENT GROUP

Mr Fevre introduced the report which was for information and feedback. He advised that there was currently a Redeployment Group within NHS Fife and it was becoming more and more important that that there was an agreed process around redeployment.

Mr Fevre advised that Craig Brown was the lead on that group and if there were any comments on the paper they should be fed back to Mr Brown. Mr Fevre said that it was important to get a process that would meet all the requirements of the service and the members of staff who required to be redeployed.

Dr Saunders said that it would be helpful to know how long from the authorisation being signed to the external advertising of jobs. Mrs Webster said that they were trying to put timescales around this but the needs of individuals being redeployed had to be considered.

Mr Pettigrew issued a warning to Members around the

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ACTIONrecruitment process. Recently an advertisement had been placed quite properly; subsequently an individual member of staff had been approached by telephone by another publishing company which then billed the Board for £2.5k. Mr Pettigrew drew this to the Members attention to this incident so that people were aware that unscrupulous organisations were preying on people’s naivety.

Mr Brechin said that he was aware of a number of areas where people had either been asked to sign for advertisements or invoices or had been asked to pursue routes which had costs attached and it might be useful to put out a warning around the system.

The Forum noted the paper and that any feedback should be given to Mr Brown.

022/06 SMOKING POLICY

Mrs Webster introduced the Smoking Policy which had been updated in light of the new legislation for Scotland being introduced on 26 March 2006.

Mrs Webster said that implementation of the new legislation would have a direct impact on staff and one of the issues that had been discussed was the question of staff smoking in uniform which had been passed to the HAI team for their input.

Mr Fevre advised that Staffside that morning had broadly welcomed the policy however there was an issue around ‘on call’ and ‘on call rooms’ within NHS Fife and how that would be managed and required clarity around that element.

Mrs Webster said that there was a general no smoking policy in all hospital premises including residences.

Mr Fevre said another issue raised by Staffside was smoking on NHS grounds and the sensitive approach required by managers to deal with this. Mrs Webster said that managers should be dealing with smoking within NHS grounds sensitively however if somebody consistently chose to ignore the rules they could be looking at disciplinary action.

Mr Fevre said that it may be useful if the element of sensitivity and spirit of what had been in the Acute Policy could to be translated into this policy.

Mr Wilson said that the issue had to be dealt with sensitively from both sides. Although the policy stated that smoking in the grounds was prohibited, it would be impossible to police that.

Mr Brechn said that the difference between the 1992 smoking

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ACTIONpolicy and the present one was that the policy now had to be written to reflect the law. Whereas it may be agreed to implement the new law, it would be inappropriate to build in tolerance into the policy.

Dr Saunders drew attention to Item 5.1 and said that it would be helpful to clarify that ‘on duty’ referred to work as opposed to ‘on duty’ at home. Mrs Webster agreed to clarify this item.

Mr Pettigrew wondered if the words “whether owned or leased” should be added to item 5.2.

Mr Fevre said that the Policy would be revisited in light of discussion today and revised accordingly. With these potential amendments the Forum approved the Smoking Policy.

023/06 LEASE CAR POLICY

Mrs Webster introduced the Policy which had been the culmination of a piece of work in trying to pull together the three previous lease car policies into one NHS Fife Policy. The majority of the content had been taken from the Primary Care Division Policy and included the Agenda for Change conditions; it should be noted that there were significant changes for those people who had been covered under the old Fife Health Board scheme.

Mrs Webster said that lease car contracts were normally drawn up on a three year basis and the contract was between the individual and the employer. Mrs Webster advised that in the past there had been specified Base Cars and a provision that the Remuneration Sub-Committee would determine the Base Car for Directors. The view at the SMT meeting was that there should be one Base Car for everyone, i.e. Ford Fiesta.

Mr Fevre said that under item 1.10, the review process required to be reported and agreed by the APF to ensure that any changes would be communicated to all individuals within the leased car arrangements. Mr Fevre also asked, in light of the recent budget, for confirmation that 1250cc base car did not take it into the higher road tax bracket.

Discussion took place on several issues within the policy with particular debate on the monthly charge to the individual. Mrs  Webster agreed that an extra sentence be added at Item 8.2: “which will be followed by discussion between the individual member of staff and the lease car manager.”

As suggested by Dr Saunders, it was agreed that the NHS Fife Policy should be consulted to obtain wording and clarification around some of the issues.

Dr Saunders asked if the insurance cover under the new policy

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ACTIONwould cover courtesy cars provided by a garage if the leased car was in for repair. Mr Brechin said that in his experience extra had to be paid to get a courtesy car and Mrs  Webster undertook to check this item.

RW

Mrs Webster said that notwithstanding that some of the wording in the Policy required to be altered, these were not material and the policy would be the one used for new leased cars.

The Forum approved the Lease Car Policy with the amendments as discussed.

024/06 AGENDA FOR CHANGE

Mr Garrick Wagner updated members on the situation with Agenda for Change. He said that work was ongoing around consistency checking with the National Consistency Group and getting jobs to payroll as expected. 1033 people had now been paid on the Agenda for Change benefits. Work was being carried out with Payroll colleagues and the target in the next month was 1000 people.

A new implementation plan had been received from SEHD with revised timescales to get all staff assimilated by October and work with Payroll was required to ensure all arrears were paid by the end of December.

Mr Wagner said that to date approximately 60% of people were covered under KSF. Progress was being made and reminders had been sent out to managers asking for updates. He said that it was only through feedback from managers that they would be able to get an accurate estimation of where NHS Fife stood with KSF.

Mr Wagner said that at the last update it had been hoped to see the new system introduced on unsociable hours by October 2006 however in the latest national update, the date for the introduction of the unsociable hours agreement was 1April 2007.

Mrs Webster said that the dates that should be ringed to meet the national timetable were 1 October when all staff had to be assimilated on Agenda for Change and 31 December when all arrears had to be paid.

Mrs Webster said that NHS Fife was currently missing the 31 March deadline for all KSF outlines and there had been a push to encourage Staffside representatives and managers to get these outlines completed.

The Forum noted the update.

025/06 OHS XTRA

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ACTION

Mrs Webster advised that NHS Fife along with NHS Lanarkshire were taking part in a two year pilot project, funded by SEHD to provide a pro-active service to support staff by providing rapid access to a dedicated network of services.

Mrs Webster said that it was hoped to bring regular reports on the effect of the service and then report back to SEHD. Meetings would be held to try and raise the profile of OHSxtra so that people would be clear how they could access the scheme.

Mr Fevre said that it was crucial to get the information out to all staff to ensure that people were aware of where the meetings would take place.

The Forum noted the verbal report.

026/06 WORKFORCE MODERNISATION AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

Mrs Webster introduced the report which would be considered by the NHS Fife Board the following week. She said that any comments would still be appreciated and the final document was due to be submitted to SEHD by the end of April.

The Forum noted the report and that comments should be fed back to Mrs Webster no later than Friday 21 April.

027/06 JOINT FUTURE STAFFING FRAMEWORK

Mr Fevre said that Staffside had met the previous month to get the paper endorsed however the paper had not gone through the normal negotiating processes. There had been a meeting the previous week to drive that forward and assist some of the work around the Lynebank discharge programme.

Mr Fevre advised that Staffside were comfortable to approve the document and Forum members had had the opportunity in the past to comment.

The Forum approved the Joint Future Staffing Framework.

028/06 ITEMS FOR NOTING:

(a) Minutes of the Glenrothes and North East Fife Local Partnership Forum

Mr Fevre said that LPFs should be encouraged to submit the minutes of their meetings to this Forum. Whilst this was not a formal requirement, it would be useful for these minutes to come to the APF.

Mr Fevre highlighted the item on the repatriation of

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ACTIONmanagement of staff in Podiatry and Physiotherapy. Mrs Irons said that no final decision had been taken and all of the issues were ongoing.

029/06 ANY OTHER COMPETENT BUSINESS

(a) Travel Survey

Ms Russell advised that there had been discussions with Staffside she had been asked by Ann McCarlie, the Project Manager, to bring the questionnaire to the meeting for approval and get the survey issued to staff with wage slips at the end of April.

Mr Fevre said that Staffside had made some amendments to the survey. Some discussion took place on the survey and Mr Brechin highlighted three areas where he had reservations:

1. The survey read as if all staff travelled to a base and remained there;

2. It was not sensible to list four hospitals; and3. The question on “Do you expect to move to the

Victoria Hospital or Queen Margaret Hospital” should be made more general and say, perhaps, “Do you expect your base to move. If so, when.”

Mr Brechn said that it should either be much more focused on the Victoria and Queen Margaret Hospitals or it should be more general and at the present it was neither.

Ms Russell said that she would feed these comments back to the Project Manager.

(b) Counter Fraud Service

Mrs Webster advised that a letter had been received from the Head of the Counter Fraud Service who had offered to come and deliver presentations and/or workshops to staff. She thought that it would be worthwhile inviting them along to give a presentation to the APF.

Mr Pettigrew said that this was part of a rolling programme to raise awareness of staff generally and was worth doing.

Mr Fevre said that while he welcomed the presentation, the agenda for the APF was too busy and a separate event should be set up. Invitations would go out to APF members but other people would also be welcome to attend.

(c) ACCA Accreditation

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ACTIONMr Pettigrew advised that the NHS Fife Finance Directorate had been in negotiations with the ACCA and had gained approved employer status. Mr Pettigrew said that this accreditation was beneficial to staff themselves and would have a positive effect on encouraging self development within the organisation.

030/06 DATE OF NEXT MEETING

Friday, 26 May 2006 at 1.30 p.m. in the Board Room, Hayfield House, Kirkcaldy

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