TUESDAY 15 July 2003 @ 1:00 PM IN THE PICASSO ROOM St CLEMENTS HOSPITAL

      Present: Arthur White, Ted Moore, Cliff Dawson, Sandra Smith, Annette Petty (Minutes), Philip Bloyce, Pat Burgess, Steve Cook,   Ian Talbot, Ray Hill and Sharon Hayden (RMS)

      Apologies: Julie Cracknell, Julie Harrison, Marilyn Wright, Glyn Reynolds, Jamie Starling, Wendy Arbon, Georgia Murray and           Paul Taylor

1.   Minutes of the Previous Meeting

The minutes of the previous meeting held on 17 June were agreed as a true and accurate record.

2.   Matters Arising

a)   Page 2 3.d  The member at Aldeburgh has not made a decision to rejoin Unison.

b)   Page 2 3.f  A reply has been received from Roger Holt, Financial Accounts Manager confirming our Branch request for regular DOCAS schedules. However a charge will be made for the information, and a complaint has been forwarded to Geoff Reason, Regional Head of Health. 

c)   Page 3 4.a  Membership

d)  page 3 4.d  Trust Council will be held at S Block, Hospital Road, Bury St Edmunds on 17 July at 2pm.

e)     Page 3 3.k  Annette has received a reply from the Director of Nursing Secretary confirming that we will be placed on their mailing list for any future Seminars. Annette to chase information up from Sue Alison at Suffolk Carers regarding hospitalization of family members for carers.

f)       Page 3 4.f  Ray Hill to attend the H&S Seminar on 10/11 October in Bury.

g)      Page 4 4.h  Highly Commended/Special Merit Awards - Certificates were passed around the meeting and cheques received.

h)  Page 4 4.g  9 candidates confirmed for the H&S Risk Assessment Workshop on 22 July.

3.  Steward/Officer Reports

1.      Presentation by RMS                                                                                                                                                                     Sharon Hayden gave a presentation on the team structure at the Eastern Region in Chelmsford. Region look after 118 Unison Branches and daily duties include processing approximately 60 applications/amendments, producing 130 membership cards, and queries/listings and membership reporting. In addition the team deal with ballots, branch funding, collection of figures, subs re-banding and all membership details. Currently they are involved with the new electronic DOCAS processing system (members subs deductions from salary). Suffolk Healthcare Branch is going live in September 2003 for RMS processing, and Annette and Gordon will be attending a 6 day course at Bury St Edmunds. The Branch currently has 1891 members and 160 retired members.

4.      Urgent Correspondence

a)     Pay Awards and Advance Letters                                                                                                                                                    Philip has emailed the letter out to all stewards/officers with the pay award agreed at 3.25%. The Advance Letter for Medical/Dental staff arrived in May, therefore pay was uplifted in June with arrears in July. The Advance Letters for all other staff were not received until June, and salaries will be uplifted in July with arrears paid in August.                                                     UNISON have also produced a 17 page document on the Subscription Bands Review (the first review was carried out 3 years ago) which comes into effect on 1 October - Annette to email/post out to all stewards/reps for their information. Bandings have been split and there is a higher salary limit. Annette also to send out remainder of application/direct debit forms to stewards to campaign for new members during July/Aug/Sept as new stocks will be sent out at the end of September and any old stocks will need to be retrieved.

b)      ABC –Action for Brazil’s Children Trust                                                                                                                                              This item to be deferred to August’s meeting and a review carried out of organisations which the Branch supports (at present Amnesty International, Socialist Health, Ipswich Labour Party, Trade Union friends of Palestine). See here

5.     Conference Feedback

Deferred to August meeting.

6.      Steward/Officer Reports

a)     Ian Talbot                                                                                                                                                                                           Ian reported that he will be returning to work on 28 July following a long illness. He has completed the branch mapping exercise but due to a hard disc problem on the pc is unable to send the information out at present.

b)     Philip Bloyce                                                                                                                                                                                     Local Health Partnerships were assessed under Improving Working Lives in mid-June but have failed. 

Grosvenor House Financial Management - 5 members were made redundant on 30 June and returned to work at West Suffolk Hospital on 1 July. Their daily working hours have been reduced from 18.5 to 7.5. Philip met with the staff last week and there is a contract monitoring group on the ward.

Communication through email - Philip re-iterated that Annette should be included on communication from branch reps to senior branch stewards which is not happening despite numerous reminders to reps.

c)   Ted Moore                                                                                                                                                                                          Ted recently attended the National Pensioners Convention in Blackpool on 1-3 July. There were 3 speakers Malcolm Wicks, MP, Dept of Works/Pensions, Oliver Heald, MP, Shadow Minister Dept of Works & Pensions, and Paul Burstow, Liberal Democrats, connected to Age Concern. The convention consisted of open workshops and covered a wide variety of topics including Foundation Hospitals, Europe, closure of Post Offices and urban Pharmacies and Pension payments into banks and building societies. Ted reported that there are two new retired members recently joined.

d)   Ray Hill                                                                                                                                                                                                Ray reported that 5 male HCA’s working at the Bartlet in Felixstowe have been told to wear lilac epaulettes on their uniform. Staff do not have to wear this on their uniform, Ray to report back to them. (matter now resolved)

e)  Pat Burgess                                                                                                                                                                                         Pat reported that 25 staff at Blytheburgh/Aldeburgh Hospital have had their salaries reduced based on unsocial hours pay. If staff are on the National Pay Scales/Whitley they automatically transfer over to the A4C agreement. If they are on a different contract they have 5 years to choose Yes/No to the A4C agreement. She also mentioned that a nurse employed at a Doctors Surgery working the same hours as 15 years ago has been told that her hours have been changed and will have to continue on this basis. Philip said that this cannot be enforced under Improving Working Lives issues. There is also some unrest between staff members because of NVQ 3 staff being off at present.

f)       Steve Cook                                                                                                                                                                                        New email address

7.      AOB

a)   Membership                                                                                                                                                                                         17 New Joiners and 0 Leavers for June

There being no further business the meeting closed at 3pm.

8.      Date/time of next meeting

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday 19 August at 1pm, Picasso Room, SCH – David Kitchen of Frizzell Insurance will be giving a presentation on its services.

Lunch is again provided

Any agenda items to be forwarded to Annette by no later than 11 August.