The panel welcomed Helen Hancox, Project Lead for the Campaign Against SW Pay Cartel, Royal College of Nursing (RCN). It was reported that –

(a)   South Devon Healthcare had not joined the Consortium. The Trust was highly rated and won a number of awards. The Trust had not joined as it is was not deemed  right for patients and not right for staff;

(b)  the RCN did not believe that changing the terms and conditions was the answer to the financial challenge. Although it was accepted that services needed to be delivered differently this could be done by addressing procurement and other related activities;

(c)   the RCN believed that their members were the easy target.  In general Nursing was not a militant profession. Ms Hancox reported never having heard so many members talk about a specific subject;

(d)  there were demotivated and demoralised staff throughout the NHS. RCN members on average gave 7 hours a week extra, if forced to work 40 hours a week staff would work to rule;

(e)  the Consortium’s discussion documents were ill conceived and do not have costing against them;

(f)    with regard to levels of sickness it needed to be recognised that nurses typically had higher rates of sickness because of the hours they worked and the type of work they carried out. Shift workers were more unlikely to be unwell and suffer obesity. Women that worked regular night shifts have more prevalent rates of breast cancer;

(g)   PHNT did not have a good staff survey results. Although Ms Hancox was reassured by the statements provided by Ms James, it was requested that the panel note that the trust had 11 of the 38 staff survey indicators in the “worst 20 per cent” category and that attacking terms and conditions would not improve these scores.

In response to questions from the panel, it was reported that –

(h)  not all sickness was stress related but working shifts made people ill,   clinicians inevitably got unwell because of the environments in which they work;

(i)    staff told the RCN that they were demotivated and demoralised.  Many staff said if changes to pay and conditions resulted in a staff contracts being terminated before implementation staff would not re-apply;

(j)    staff retention and recruitment would be severely hampered by proposals for regional pay.  Currently 25 per cent of nurses on the Peninsula were over 55. The recent intake of student nurses at Royal Cornwall Hospital Treliske was only 80 students.  Trusts were required to recruit from abroad from countries such as Portugal and the Philippines;

(k)  many organisations were seeing a downward shift in the available skill mix;

(l)    for some staff the change to pay, terms and conditions would result in work not paying. Many staff would choose to work with agencies as terms were often better. Some Trusts were already spending four times as much on agency staff then previously;

(m)Services provided by Specialist Nurses were being eroded. The RCN believed that specialist nurses would go elsewhere to acheive better remuneration;

(n)  there was already a huge reliance on agency staff at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.  Temporary agency staff were employed for weeks with accommodation and travel expenses paid.  If regionalised pay had the anticipated impact on recruitment and retention this situation would worsen.

The panel thanked Ms Hancox for her attendance.