Agenda for Change launched
National roll-out of Agenda
for Change began on 1 December. The Department of Health has stated that by next March the majority of NHS staff will
be matched to a new pay band, with all staff assimilated by September
2005. However, staff at some of the early implementer sites have warned
that the this process can be time consuming.
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London has been
one of the Agenda for Change early implementer sites and placed the first
advertisement for a pharmacist post in August of this year (Pharmaceutical
Journal 2004;273:249–50). Cath McKenzie, the manager who recruited
to this band 8a post for a highly specialist critical care pharmacist,
confirmed that a candidate is now in post. She told Hospital Pharmacist: “Recruiting
under Agenda for Change meant we had to follow the person specification
much more than we would previously have done, and one candidate was rejected
on this basis.” She also said that not everyone in the pharmacy
department has yet assimilated on to their new bands and the process
of implementing Agenda for Change has been more difficult and more time
consuming than anyone had originally anticipated.
Most pharmacy staff have now been assimilated at another early implementer
side, Aintree University Hospitals NHS Trust. Dave Thornton, principal
pharmacist, also explained that assimilation had taken a lot of time,
although that had been expected. “Problems have been experienced
in assimilating pharmacy technicians, with the starting salary and earning
potential of many posts reducing,” he said. He stressed the importance
of managing expectations so that staff do not believe that they will
end up in a higher band than they will realistically achieve.
The issues of payment for unsocial hours and on-call have still to be
resolved. A national job profile is still to be agreed for preregistration
trainees.
Agenda for Change was approved by the NHS Staff Council on 23 November,
following votes in favour by Unison, Amicus and the Royal College of
Nursing. Pharmacists in the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists voted in
the Amicus ballot, which supported Agenda for Change by 17,519 to 13,381.
A breakdown of the voting among pharmacist members of the guild is not
available.
The final Agenda for Change documentation has been published by the Department
of Health (see above).
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Hospital Pharmacist