Report of the Northern Ireland Junior Doctors Committee meeting which took
place on Wednesday 17 September 2014 in the BMA Belfast office
Election of Deputy Chairmen 2014/15 (2 posts)
Dr Chris Hoo was re-elected Deputy Chairman with responsibility for negotiations and issues relating
to terms and conditions, the New Deal and the WTD.
Dr Stephen McAleer was elected as Deputy Chairman with responsibility for education, training and
other issues.
Chairman’s report
The Chair referred briefly to his engagements since the last meeting, the majority of which were JDC
Contract Negotiating Meetings. He advised that the committee should give consideration to any
items on the agenda they felt would be newsworthy and could be included in the BMA News. He
also thanked all the committee members who took part in the member engagement survey carried
out in June, the results of which were included with the agenda papers along with a proposed action
plan.
The Chair then handed over to the NI Secretary, who updated the Committee on the new BMA NI
Staff Structure and the BMA Transformation Programme.
Political Update
The Chair reported that following on from the very successful first meeting with DHSSPS
representatives in March, the second Doctors' Voices meeting with the DHSSPS Minister, the new
Permanent Secretary, Richard Pengelly, and the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Michael McBride has
been scheduled in early October. The committee was asked for suggestions on issues for they would
like to raise at this event.
Bernadette Maginnis, Political Liaison Officer, briefly outlined what format the meeting would take
and advised that a cross Branch of Practice delegation would attend the meeting including the Chair
and Deputy Chair of NIJDC. This meeting was an opportunity for medics to engage with the
Minister directly on issues affecting them on the ground. Some issues discussed at the previous
meeting included A&E problem, TYC, communication etc
Other issues briefly mentioned in the Political Update included the ongoing “soft opt-out” Organ
Donation campaign and the NI Human Rights Commission Inquiry.
Governance in the HSC
The Chair reported that Sir Liam Donaldson's appointment to advise the Minister on governance
arrangements across Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland was announced in May 2014. The
Chair of NI Council had written to Sir Liam seeking a meeting and members were asked to give
consideration to any issues to raise at this meeting.
Emergency & Unscheduled Care
The Chair reported that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission is to investigate whether
patients who encountered problems in A&E had their human rights violated. The commission will
publish its final report and recommendations to the Northern Ireland Executive in April 2015. This
investigation stems from the problems in A&E at the Royal Victoria Hospital.
It was also reported that Dr Darragh, Chair of NI Council, accepted an invitation from the NI Human
Rights Commission to give evidence to their Inquiry into Emergency Health Care on Monday 15
September 2014.
Public hearings began this month, taking evidence from the public, health workers, managers, and
anyone who has a story to tell the inquiry about their experience of A&E in Northern Ireland.
On 1 July 2014, Health Minister Edwin Poots announced a regional task group, jointly chaired by the
Chief Medical Officer, Dr Michael McBride, and the Chief Nursing Officer, Charlotte McArdle, to
drive forward an improvement in the delivery of unscheduled care in Northern Ireland. BMA(NI) has
written to the CMO to request a seat on his Regional Task Group on Unscheduled Care.
There was some discussion on what the possible outcome of this inquiry would present and it was
felt that the problems would most likely be blamed on systems failures. The public, health workers,
including doctors from various emergency departments, other unions etc have been asked to
contribute to this inquiry to ensure a broad spread of views.
Industrial Relations Team Update
The Junior Doctor Forum meetings are being arranged for the new session and members were
encouraged to participate and assist where they could and to try to persuade their colleagues to
attend these important workplace meetings.
Shape of Training
The Chair reported that a series of workshops to consider the Shape of Training for UK trainees had
been scheduled by Health Education England and the Chief Medical Officer in Northern Ireland, Dr
Michael McBride, had written to BMA(NI) to encourage NI attendance at these. Dr Paul Darragh,
Chair of NI Council, attended the SoT workshop on 11th September ("Interaction with Employers")
hosted by the HEE/DH. The aim of the workshops is to form policy on each of the themed areas. The
outputs of these sessions will be assimilated into a report which will be submitted to Governments
later this year. This report will also include the anticipated costings and assessments of any proposed
changes
The BMA(NI) Secretary and the Deputy Co-Chair, Dr Chris Hoo, gave an update further to their
meeting with the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Paddy Woods on the issue of Shape of Training on
15 September. Dr Woods is the NI representative on the UK-wide SoT Steering Group chaired by
Professor Ian Finlay, Clinical Advisor to the Scottish Government.
Moving the Point of Registration (PoR)
The Political Liaison Officer, Bernadette Maginnis, gave a brief report further to a meeting with the
Chief Medical Officer, Dr Michael McBride, on the matter of moving the Point of Registration on 21
August. Prior to this, on 7 August, the Medical Students Committee UK also met with the CMO in
England, Dame Professor Sally Davis.
National Training Survey (NTS)
The Chair reported that the results of the 2014 NTS showed that of the 12 indicators across all
stages of training including: overall satisfaction, clinical supervision, educational supervision,
induction, handover, adequate experience etc; handover rated lowest across all 4 nations. The
committee was asked for their views on what follow up action could be taken in NI regarding
improving handover arrangements and to give examples of their experience of handover
arrangements in their place of work.
There was some discussion on this and most members acknowledged that the main problem was
with lack of adequate time allocated for handover. As rotas are so tightly pared down there is little
or no room to add in even extra half hours, which results in handovers occurring outside allocated
working times with someone either coming in early or staying late. However, it appeared that
nursing staff do have specified handover times.
Dr Hoo advised that he attends Board Liaison Group (BLG) meetings where his role is to review rotas
and discuss monitoring and handover should be built in to all rotas. If this is not the case, then
members were asked to send details to Dr Hoo in advance of the next BLG meeting.
It was also agreed that information on this should be included in the next NIJDC newsletter and also
added to the agenda for the meeting with the Deanery on 17 November.
HSC e-Locums bank
The committee received an oral update from Lucinda Wright, Employment Advisor, advising that
negotiations continue between BMA(NI) and employers in relation to the establishment of a regional
HSE e-locum agency. While BMA are supportive in principle, there is still work to do in order to
ensure the system is fit for purpose, as well as reasonable and acceptable pay rates agreed.
Members were advised that currently, the Business Services Organisation (BSO) is unable to take
responsibility for the new proposed system so the SHSCT & SEHSCT wish to advance matters alone in
order to progress.
In the interim, members were asked to encourage their colleagues to remain patient and not to feel
pressured to register on the system until final agreements are reached (on rates of pay, travel
expenses and support service arrangements).
Local Negotiating Committees
Lucinda Wright, Employment Adviser, reminded members of the importance of LNCs in their
workplace and encouraged their involvement at this level as well as promoting the importance of
this role to their colleagues. The Committee was advised that a new Employment Adviser, Kerry
O’Connor, had recently been recruited to support LNCs.
NIJDC WORKPLAN 2014-15
The Chair reported that the resolutions from Conference/ARM have been allocated to the relevant
Subcommittees of JDC and national offices and will become part of their workplan for the next
session. The committee was asked to receive the draft NIJDC workplan for 2014-15. This was a
“live” document and members can add suggestions for any issues they want NIJDC to take forward
throughout the session.
Other items discussed:
NIJDC newsletter
Transforming Your Care – clinical engagement
Central Medical Advisory Committee
Public Health Forum (PHF)
Date of next meetings
Wednesday, 19 November 2014
Wednesday, 18 February 2015
Wednesday, 20 May 2015
For further information please contact Hilary Nesbitt or Joanne Bryson, Executive Officers at BMA(NI),
Tel: 028 9026 9668 or email: [email protected]
© Copyright 2024 ExpyDoc
