Urgent Update From Jackie Robinson
Some months back, 2 of the staff side leads, Barry Jarvis and Kevin Risley met with a group of management representatives (Ops, HEOC and HR) to discuss a way forward as regards harmonising the three current deployment arrangements into one single agreement. The working group met over 6 days and came up with a draft proposal which I then sent out to my reps within the Beds, Cambs and Herts localities.
The number of responses I received from these groups could not be described as plentiful in number (4 in total) but they were quite explicit in their content and were passed onto Kevin and Barry to take back to the working group with them and as a result some amendments were made to the original draft...
There were issues around what was deemed to be an acceptable length of time to expect someone to remain at a "hot” standby site (or anywhere that would not normally be deemed as a response post which would have facilities specified in the Trust’s criteria list for response posts.
Management claimed that Occupational Health had indicated that 90 minutes was an acceptable period of time so staff side said they wanted to see and consider this "information" before making any decision about this.
The deployment plan was an agenda item at the most recent Staff Partnership Forum (26th September) and despite staff side making their position clear as regards the OHD information it would appear that some misunderstanding arose whereby the management representatives allege that they believed that the plan had been "agreed and signed off" whereas staff side left the meeting with no such opinion/understanding - having requested sight/sound of the OHD advice/opinion before any further discussion or agreement would take place..
On Friday 3rd October I was contacted by an extremely annoyed Cambs rep who’d been presented with a deployment instruction which he was told had been agreed/signed off by staff side and came into effect that day. I assured him that this was not my understanding and having sought clarification from Kevin and Barry that I was correct in my thinking I contacted Oskan Edwardson, advised him that he was mistaken(!) and requested he retract the deployment instruction until further notice but he was not willing to do so without further discussion which he suggested took place as a matter of urgency.
Staff side met with Hayden Newton and Oskan Edwardson on Monday 6th October and each party stated that they were very clear in their minds what had/hadn't been agreed at the SPF on the 26th September so in the end both parties conceded that there had been a misunderstanding and/or misinterpretation somewhere along the line.
Further discussion followed around how best to move forward on the matter of achieving effective deployment whilst being mindful of the immense pressures being placed on all members of the Trust at this present time. The option of "piloting" the deployment plan proposal for a fixed term (end date: 31st March 2009) and as a "live" working draft was considered. A review at the end of the fixed term would then be used to identify any success/failure/pro's/con's etc and determine whether a need for deployment existed and/or if alternative options needed to be considered
It was genuinely felt that this might allow for a safe level of cover to be achieved by way of deployment and by tweaking some of the elements (hours of use and the type of resources to be utilised) make it more staff friendly. The management team were not totally opposed to the idea although Oskan did express some concerns around the hours of use several times during the meeting, again during a phone conversation with Kevin, John Toomey and myself later that same day and then again during another conversation with Kevin the following day at which point Oskan indicated that his senior Ops managers (Gold Cell) were not confident they could accommodate the proposed hours of use. However Kevin made it perfectly clear that the staff side would not be prepared to minimise or concede on any of the areas already indicated.
So, there’s the background information so now on to the present day...
It is recognised that everyone is being placed under extraordinary levels of pressure to meet performance targets in the name of enhancing patient care and the East of England are not alone in striving this. Failure to do so could very well result in external bodies coming into the Trust and job security being challenged.
As I said at the beginning of this update, the deployment plan proposal has been the focus of the staff side leads’ attention and conversation these past few days and I’m able to confirm that Kevin Risley has contacted Hayden Newton to advise him that staffside do not intend to sign up to anything, be it a pilot scheme or otherwise until they have consulted more widely on the subject with their branch. It would be fair to say that this news was not well received but it is not our intention to proceed without branch engagement.
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