TUESDAY 13 JULY 2004 @ 2:00 PM IN THE PICASSO ROOM St CLEMENTS HOSPITAL

      Present:  Ted Moore, Arthur White, Andy Willcox, Ian Talbot, Philip Bloyce (Chair), Cheryl Godber (Regional Organiser), Paul Taylor and Annette Petty (Minutes)

Apologies:  Steve Cook, Julie Cracknell, Barbara Gutowski, Ray Hill and Julie Harrison

1.  Minutes of the last meeting

The minutes of the last meeting held on 15 June 2004 were agreed as a true and accurate record.

2.  Matters Arising

a)  Page 1. 2a - Annette to return Mark Hillis’s nomination form as he needs nomination by an appropriate UNISON member. Once received, Mark will be ratified if in attendance during the August meeting. His constituency will be Ipswich Community.

b)  Page 4. 5i - In-house training 13 July - attendee should have read Julie Cracknell.

c)   Page 2. 4d - Philip explained regarding the financial implications of A4C that a paper had been forwarded to the SMHP NHS Trust Board from Diana Brown, Project Manager and himself showing the cost implications for the rollout of AfC being £800,000. This has been accepted as realistic by the board together with replacement costs of 30%. A new general sickness policy has been sent out. The attendance management policy has been re-written as the sickness policy and is currently being re-worked and a pilot launched in Ipswich recently. He also suggested that Paul Taylor arranges a meeting with Paula Clarke for branch officers to discuss the sickness problems at Walker Close. Paul to contact Paula to arrange a mutually convenient date and time.

d)  Page 2. 5a - Ray will report to the August meeting on the Healthcare Conference in Glasgow.

e)  Page 3. 5b - A precautionary temporary suspension of ratification has been upheld by the committee until further notice following an alleged internal branch dispute with a representative. Ian re-iterated that the former steward has now appealed against last month’s committee decision to temporarily suspend ratification following re-election. Ian has written a letter to the disputer on 30 June with a copy to Greg Grant, Regional Secretary. The disputer has since written back requesting the right to appeal against the branch committee decision. Action: Ian to set up an independent branch panel and also locate a suitable representative to represent the disputer. Ian or Philip will present the case to the panel on behalf of the branch.

f)  Page 3. 5d - Ian has written to Julie Todd regarding the situation at Hartismere hospital, but has yet to receive an answer.

g)  Page 4. 5e - No response received in respect of Branch Funding/Regional Pool.

h)  Page 4. 5f - Stewards purchasing new ink cartridges for PC’s will no longer be reimbursed as previously arranged. Orders will now be taken via the branch for the attention of Ian who will place the order through inkcycle. The website address for these cartridges is www.inkcycle.co.uk 

3.  Steward/Officer Reports

a)   Paul Taylor
Paul reported that the nursing bank member working at Walker Close has had their disciplinary case dropped by SMHP NHS Trust. Full pay including night shift allowance will be honoured until a return to work. The legal form P1 has also been sent off to UNISON.

b)   Arthur White                                                                                                                                                                                       no report

c)   Ian Talbot                                                                                                                                                                                           Ian reported that there is a member working at G Block, Bury St Edmunds is training to become an Occupational Therapist through self funding as grants have not been available. The member approached the branch requesting financial sponsorship to help purchase books ect as all other avenues of support have proved fruitless. It was agreed to pay a one off donation of £150. It was also suggested that contacting Amazon Direct who have decent second hand course and reference books for sale on line could also help ease the financial squeeze.

d)   Philip Bloyce                                                                                                                                                                                    Philip has been trying to get volunteers to fill Job Matching and Job Evaluation Panels/Working Groups to implement AfC. At present we have the following branch AfC representatives which were approved at the meeting:                                                                 Job Evaluation - Amanda Lee Pearson - SCH Graham Clements - Hillcrest Residential Care Home
Stan Bloor - Old Fox Club House, Stowmarket & Judith Salmon - Payroll, SCH
Working Groups - Shirley Austin - Brickfield Close & Brenda Holliday - HR Manager, Sampson House

Annette to check that they are paid up UNISON members and write to Avril Wright, Director of HR, Suffolk House confirming the appointments.

Update on AfC - Philip has given SMHP NHS Trust 4 presentations together with Diana Brown, Project Manager for AfC, together with a support Director from Trust Board, at Ipswich, Stowmarket, Bury and Haverhill recently to an average attendance of approximately 40 staff at each. Next week, Philip is giving presentations at Newmarket and Lothingland in Oulton near Lowestoft, and a further two presentations are planned for Bury and Ipswich on 28 and 29 July respectively. He reiterated that all Job Descriptions must be signed and agreed by no later than 26 August noting the JD must accurately reflect the post-holders job. The Working Groups must be made up of 50% staff and 50% management as governed by the proposals. Suffolk HealthCare branch of
UNISON are in desperate need AfC representatives to sit on these groups and negotiate for terms and conditions, on-call and sleep-in rates, unsocial payments and making local decisions. Time off for all AfC representatives will be agreed by the Trust.
The implementation date is 1 October but has been backdated to 1 December with a completion date of July 2005 realistically (was March 2005). Members need to be more involved through the branch and more volunteers are urgently required to help. UNISON’s national ballot takes place mid October with the result in November. However, payment of unsocial hours will need to be improved by the government in order to comfortably vote AfC through.

Any members or representative working for SMHP NHS Trust or any one of the five Suffolk NHS PCT’s interested in sitting on the working groups need to get signed up immediately:                                                                                                                     please contact Philip Bloyce on: 07855 773314 or E-mail philip.bloyce@lhp.nhs.uk
The branch will publicise the need for more volunteers via the Project Implementation Team and Communications Group. Annette to obtain another supply of AfC national posters and Ian to devise local posters to be displayed Countywide.

4.  AOB

a)   The branch will send a bouquet of flowers to a branch steward who has been on long term sick leave.

b)   Taking on “new members”                                                                                                                                                                     A general discussion took place following on from the Harassment & Bullying Training day in June following concern of new members joining with an appeal pending due to job description inaccuracies in respect of AfC. For example, once the rollout for AfC has commenced, if using a poorly evaluated JD, staff may simply wish to join UNISON in an effort to get representation resulting in the branch being inundated with applications for appeal. National Rules state that there is a “13 week rule” when a new member joins the union. i.e. a new member can join UNISON but they will not receive legal assistance if they have an existing problem until they have been a member for 13 weeks. However, new members will still receive help, guidance or advice. It was decided to set clear guidelines that any new member bringing in appeals to the branch, will not taken on and the 13 week rule is taken into
account as laid down Nationally. 13 week back pay of subscriptions will also be stopped with immediate effect.

Annette to adapt the standard “welcome letter” sent out to all new members with the above “national legal assistance” clause clearly stating:

LEGAL ASSISTANCE
UNISON rules require a member to have 13 weeks paid membership in order to qualify for legal assistance.                                 This means 13 weeks membership prior to a member knowing assistance would be needed on an issue.                                   Legal assistance may include advice or representation.

The joining pack and branch letter will also state the legal assistance rule and will be automatically sent out together with the pack to all new members wishing to join UNISON.

c)   Membership                                                                                                                                                                                        Ian reported that the membership currently stands at approximately 2007 not taking into account 20 new joiners for June. In addition, the retired membership is currently 102

Date/Time Next Meeting

The next meeting will take place on Tuesday 17 August at 14:00 pm and will take place in the Small Meeting Room, Suffolk House.
Lunch from 1.15pm

There being no further business, the meeting closed at 16:00 pm.

Any agenda items to be forwarded to Annette a week prior to the meeting.                                                                                Dates and times for all 2004 meetings can be found here