New Occupational Health and Safety Standards published by NHS Employers

NHS Employers represents trusts in England on workforce issues and helps employers to ensure the NHS is a place where people want to work.

Health and safety is, of course, a significant workforce issue and members of the Partnership for Occupational Health and Safety in Healthcare (POSHH), a sub group of the NHS Staff Council, have produced a document of Occupational Health and Safety Standards that is available on the NHS Employers website.

Very similar to the old NHS controls assurance standards, the document pulls together legal requirements, examples of good practice and practical guidance on meeting standards for the following key areas of occupational health and safety:

- Management of health and safety
- Provision of an occupational health service
- Musculoskeletal disorders/manual handling
- Violence and agression
- Slips, trips and falls
- Stress
- COSHH general requirements
- Prevention and control (Communicable diseases, needlestick management/blood-borne viruses, latex and healthcare acquired infection, including hand washing)
- Contractors and sub-contractors
- Fire
- Working Time Directive
- Pregnancy and new mothers
- Display Screen Equipment

The Occupational Health and Safety Standardswill both help trusts meet their legal obligations, and achieve the health and safety aspects of the Healthcare Commissions Standards for Better Health; NHS Litigation Authority standards and the Improving Working Lives initiative. The standards also provide a useful checklist for those involved in the commissioning of care.

The standards can be freely downloaded here.

Staff survey results indicate improvement in staff governance across NHS Scotland

NHS Scotland is unique in that it meets special standards relating to ’staff governance.’

Staff governance is a system of corporate accountability for the fair and effective management of staff. It focuses on how NHSScotland staff are managed and feel they are being managed, which with Financial and Clinical Governance completes the Governance framework within which NHS Boards, Special Health Boards and NHS National Services Scotland must operate.

A key indicator of staff governance is the biannual national staff survey. The results from the staff survey are used to develop action plans that facilitate delivery against the Staff Governance Standard.

Over 58,000 (37%) employees from all NHS Boards and Special NHS Boards across Scotland responded to the national survey which was sent out in October and November 2008.

The staff survey, which is carried out every two years, focuses on how staff are managed and feel they are managed and invites employees to share their views and experiences of working for the NHS.

The national results for 2008 show that the majority of respondees:

- were happy to go the ‘extra mile’ at work when required;
- were satisfied with the support they receive from work colleagues;
- felt their job makes good use of their skills and abilities;
- were clear about what they were expected to achieve and have the information to they need to do their job well; and
- intend to still be working within their NHS Board in 12 months time.

Compared to the last survey in 2006, the findings show improvement in a number of areas:

- 17% more respondees feel they have equality of opportunity in the work place;
- 16% more respondees feel satisfied with the opportunities they have to put forward new ideas or suggestions for improvement;
- 16% more respondees are confident their ideas or suggestions would be listened to;
- 12% more respondees feel that NHS Scotland is a good place to work;
- 10% fewer respondees stated they have experienced a violent incident in the last 12 months.

Both the staff survey results and the Staff Governance Standard can be accessed here.

WARNING! Poor leadership may damage employees’ hearts

A study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine addresses the impact of leadership on the heart disease among employees.

A Swedish team found a strong link between poor leadership and the risk of serious heart disease and heart attacks among more than 3,000 employed men. And the effect may be cumulative – the risk went up the longer an employee worked for the same company.

Researchers from the Karolinska Institute and Stockholm University tracked the heart health of the male employees, aged between 19 and 70 and working in the Stockholm area, over a period of nearly a decade. During this time 74 cases of fatal and non-fatal heart attack or acute angina, or death from ischaemic heart disease, occurred.

All the participants were asked to rate the leadership style of their senior managers on competencies such as how clearly they set out goals for their staff and how good they were at communicating and giving feedback. The staff who deemed their senior managers to be the least competent had a 25% higher risk of a serious heart problem. And those working for what was classed as a long time – four years or more – had a 64% higher risk.

The findings held true, regardless of educational attainment, social class, income, workload, lifestyle factors, such as smoking and exercise, and other risk factors for heart disease, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

The researchers, which included experts from University College London in the UK and the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, said that if a direct cause and effect was confirmed, then managers’ behaviour should be targeted in a bid to stave off serious heart disease among less senior employees.

They said managers should give employees clear work objectives and sufficient power in relation to their responsibilities.

Source: BBC – click here.

For further information, click here.

Dealing with ineffective governance in NHS Scotland – the case of Western Isles Health Board

An interesting case study involving the Western Isles Health Board - part of NHS Scotland – in what appears to be a classic case of ineffective NHS governance; and the mechanisms in place to hold senior figures to account.

In essence, the Auditor General (AG) for Scotland produced a Section 22 report on the Health Board following its failure to meet a financial target. This was the third consecutive year the AG had prepared a report on the accounts of the Board. His report points to “a number of serious weaknesses concerning the Board’s corporate governance arrangements.”

His report also states that “The Board has no comprehensive performance management framework in place and corporate objectives were not agreed during 2006/07. There is no committee to oversee performance and no system in place to record and report benefits from pay modernisation. Furthermore, a recent report by NHS Quality Improvement Scotland on clinical governance identified some significant failings, including a lack of clear strategic priorities and a lack of performance monitoring.”

Follow the inquiry into the Section 22 report on Western Isles Health Board here.

UPDATE – Western Isles Health Board has issued a statement saying that it has now achieved financial balance. Read the statement here.
 

Wales issues guidance on governance arrangements for visiting consultants

The Welsh Assesmbly has issued Welsh Health Circular (2008) 020 concerning governance arrangements for clinical sessions provided by visiting consultants. This circular makes the requirement to have a Service Level Agreement in place for all consultant led sessions provided in Wales by two or more separate organisations. It introduces a national model for Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for use in the accountability process between Local Health Boards (LHBs), Health Commission Wales (HCW) and NHS Trusts.

According to the circular, “The introduction of a national model SLA supports the development of a more comprehensive governance framework in Wales and improves the consistency and rigour attached to contractual agreements between organisations within the health community. The model SLA will clarify accountabilities and ensure that organisations deliver their commitments both in terms of contractual arrangements and the management of service delivery.”

Welsh Health Circular (2008) 020 can be downloaded here.

“Patients are not the top priority” for trusts says NHS staff survey

 

For further information click here.

NHS Scotland updates its ‘Staff Governance’ standard

The NHS in Scotland has for several years led the way in best practice in ‘human resources management’ in healthcare with its approach to ’staff governance’.  Staff governance is defined as ‘a system of corporate accountability for the fair and effective management of all staff” and ‘makes up the third pillar of the governance framework (alongside clinical and financial governance) within which [the NHS in Scotland] must operate.’ The 3rd and latest edition of the NHS Scotland Staff Governance Standard for NHSScotland employees can be downloaded at: http://openscotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/179320/0051009.pdf