The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 273 No 7322 p618
23 October 2004

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Experiences of being an early implementer of Agenda for Change

The 2004 British Pharmaceutical Conference and Exhibition “Medicines: from cell to society” took place at Manchester International Convention Centre from 27–29 September

BPC 2004 summary

Front-line experiences of implementing the Agenda for Change process (AfC) were set out to delegates by David Millar, chief pharmacist at City Hospital, Sunderland, and Tess Fenn, chief pharmacy technician for education and training at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Hospital Trust, London. Both of their trusts are among the early implementer sites.

Big bang approach

A “big bang” approach to implementing AfC was the initial plan at City Hospital, Sunderland, Mr Millar explained. Disclosure of the outcomes of the job evaluations took place on 20 May, with staff set to be assimilated to their bands on 1 June and paid under AfC later that month.

That things did not go quite according to plan is widely known, Mr Millar continued. Several staff (mainly administrative staff) were unhappy with their job evaluations and took industrial action. Assimilation was delayed and has not yet taken place.

However, most pharmacists and support staff seemed to do reasonably well out of the job evaluations, Mr Millar added. The legacy of AfC is likely to be the focus it will bring to knowledge and skills, he concluded.

The sheer enormity of the task and the fact that the decisions made could have knock-on effects for pharmacy technicians at other trusts were the main issues surrounding being an “early implementer”, Mrs Fenn told delegates. For example, job analysis questionnaires were 40 pages long and completing them invariably meant a certain amount of after-hours work. Having each member of pharmacy staff (270 in all, 70 of whom are technicians) fill them in was impractical, so staff grouped together to complete them. The process had to be done to tight deadlines, she explained, so that profiles could be drawn up.

Technicians’ concerns include that the areas where they expect to score well (such as those relating to “extended roles” work) do not seem to be highly rated under AfC, she said. Assimilation has not yet taken place at Guy’s and St Thomas’, Mrs Fenn added.

Society’s view

Also at the session, David Pruce, director of practice and quality improvement at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, set out the Society’s view on AfC. Mr Pruce said he was pleased that details about medicines has now been included in the knowledge and skills framework. He hopes that AfC will achieve its aim of giving “equal pay for equal work” across the managed sector, but wonders whether there were simpler ways of achieving this that would take up less time and therefore distract less from patient care.