Trent Consultants Committee Report (unconfirmed)

The Trent regional consultants meeting was held on 27th September 2012 and discussed the follows.

Election of Officers: Mike Henley (Urologist Derby) elected chairman. David Shipstone (Urologist Chesterfield) elected secretary.

Job Planning:
A very similar picture around the region. Usual pressures on SPA time. Some units where still paying a blanket 2.5SPAs as per contract, others were paying 2.5 only with negotiation. The contract is reasonably clear on this, if a doctor can demonstrate that they are performing SPA work up to 2.5 SPAs there is an expectation it should be paid for. Like all other areas of the contract it is reasonable to have associated outcome measures with SPA time.

Revalidation Preparations:
These are of course occurring all around the region. At the moment there are a plethora of systems. The committee was concerned that arrangements should be similar at all hospitals as the sequelae are so serious and therefore the requirements of MSF/360 etc. in different units should be similar.

Local Pay and T&Cs:
The committee was agreed that these would be counter productive both economically and also in terms of recruiting and retaining excellent medical staff within the regions. The committee agreed with the BMA intention to work with all health unions to reject this threat.

Pensions Industrial Action:
The committee noted that the Scottish BMA had announced its intention to ballot secondary care doctors on emergency cover only industrial action. UK council has a requirement from the BMA annual meeting to do the same in the UK. Council has decided to continue negotiations (none meaningful at the moment) while at the same time prepare to take a further ballot of secondary care doctors on emergency only action later in the year.

All members of the committee felt that the recent industrial action was a poor model and had been hard to take. They also expressed concern regarding the very great difficulties that juniors had in showing their support. The committee members felt that it was with very deep regret that further industrial action was being considered but that the current pension deal had only recently been renegotiated and declared good value for money only just over a year ago. It was also felt iniquitous that many other members of public sector pension schemes were due to have better pensions than doctors despite very much lower contributions.

Next national consultants committee meeting is on Thursday the 4th October. Next meeting of Trent consultants committee 29.11.12

The committee agreed to explore the possibility of an open BMA meeting, possibly for 29.11.12 and also to attempt to arrange a meeting with some or one of the local members of parliament.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch should you wish to comment.