Within the North of Scotland we have over time established a number of working arrangements to support the delivery of on call services (e.g. shared island on call rota) and have routinely reviewed and shared practice across the NoS Boards to support improvement.
The purpose of the event was to consider health protection on-call services in the North of Scotland to ensure they are resilient and sustainable going forward and sensitive to the needs of the NoS population.
Its aims were to:
- share practice to understand variation across the region
- discuss areas for improvement (guidance, policies, training and CPD, induction, peer review)
- consider what of this might be deliverable.
It was intended that outputs from the event would ensure requirements for the delivery of on-call services in the NoS were well understood and reflected in the national developments that were taking place. These included the Shared Services Review for Health Protection and the Public Health Reform Body commission.
The intended outcomes were:
- Agreement to continue current working arrangements that are working well (eg MOU/support) and how these and other work might be improved
- Agreement on potential models for on call provision/support in the NoS and criteria for effectiveness
- Reflecting on what it might take to make any suggestions deliverable (from individuals/teams/Board perspectives)
- Agreement on common messages from the NoS to be fed into any further national developments.
Attendees:
| NHS Board | In Aberdeen | By VC |
| Grampian | Fiona Browning (HPN) Helen Corrigan (HPN) Simon Hilton (CPH) William Moore (CPH) Diana Webster (CPH HP) Susan Webb (DPH) 1pm onwards Emmanuel Opko (tbc) | |
| Highland | Lynda Davidson (HPN) Pip Farman (PHS / NoSPHN) Catherine Flannigan (SpT) Ken Oates (CPH HP) Jenny Wares (SpT) | Sally Amor (PHS) Rob Henderson (CPH) Lorraine McKee (HPN) Cameron Stark (CPH) Hugo van Woerden (DPH) (pm) |
| Orkney | Louise Wilson (DPH) | |
| Shetland | Susan Webb (DPH) 1pm onwards | Susan Laidlaw (CPH) |
| Tayside | Jackie Hyland (CPH HP) Lucy Denvir (CPH HP) | |
| Western Isles | Maggie Watts (DPH) Isabell MacInnes (HPN) Christina Morrison (HPN) |
Six development areas emerged from discussions on the day, that it was agreed would be progressed. These were:
- IT/HPZone – improvements and access across Boards
- Developing resilience (people / quality) – looking at definitions and understanding of roles / governance / how cases dealt with / EHO links / vision and values / maximising resources available against quality criteria.
- In and out of hours work – mapping to look at variation
- Sharing of guidance to Look at definitions/ thresholds/what is responded to out of hours
- Sharing of CPD / support – planned approaches
- First on call – defining what will good look like?
Post Event Materials Available (password protected) include :
Event Materials:
- NoSPHN HP Event Summary
- Board Presentations – On Call Arrangements in Grampian and Orkney
- On call Audit Data
- Health protection Staffing Summary (June 2018)
Supporting Materials:
- Shared Services Review – health protection reports and NoS feedback including National and NoS summaries of the national health protection audit data
- Public Health Reform Board: Protecting Health Commission – papers
- North of Scotland Boards on call rota staffing
- Presentation to the FPH conference November 2017 on the Island on call rota (slide 10 onwards)
- NoS MOU Surge Capacity
- NES on call training document
- NHS Scotland Standards for Organisational Resilience May 2016
- Health and Social Care Delivery Plan
All Papers, Notes and supporting Materials from the meeting series are available on request from kim.penman@nhs.scot