Tuesday 11 September 2012

Meeting between UNISON reps and the Mental Health Management

UNISON reps met with Jackie Drury, Keith McCoy and Marian Harrington to discuss their concerns over the mental health restructuring as well as implementation.

JD acknowledged there had been poor communication between LBI UNISON and suggested we are invited to the Partnership Board whee management meet with staff side trade unions.
It was agreed that we would be given an invitation.

KM offered to meet us to discuss our specific concerns about the implementation and especially the Recruitment and Retention document. It was stated that this was a transition period and was an opportunity for management to review how it was going and that their plan was for the news service to be embedded by January 2013.

JD said that there were regular reviews built in and that there would be a thorough review at three months (mid October) 

MH was clear from Islington that they would like to build close links with their seconded social work staff, she was in discussions with Natasha Sloman about forums such as the Social Work Forum

MH also wanted to to know if LBI workers' workloads were increased as they expected the Trust to meet their employers obligations to LBI staff. It was clarified that LBI hadn't reduced any of their mental health funding and had no intention to do so.

MH informed us that NS is in the process of developing a rota for AHMP services which would cover court diversion, unknown service users but wouldn't replace the duty system currently in operation for known service users. This is in its infancy and they would appreciate AHMP and UNISON input into this. She was clear that this would be borough wide but confirmed Islington AHMPs work only in Islington and there are no plans to change this.

MH also said that they were happy to do the social work task force checks in each team which basically involves a "healthy workforce assessment" looking at caseload numbers, sickness levels, whether people are having regular supervision, are able to take annual leave and TOIL etc.

For more information contact Lynne.moffat@islington.gov.uk or Eric Hill on Eric.hill@islingtonunison.org.uk

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.