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IN SURREY COUNTY REABLEMENT SERVICE SEPT 2013

Reablement staff look to UNISON to help end Deficit hours headache .

UNISON have produced this quick news sheet to try to keep you informed of what is happending in the reablement service (in the East of the County in particular). Alan Clyne (UNISON Adult Services Convenor) alan.clyne@surreycc.gov.uk As you do not need to be reminded, our in-house homecare service has gone through many changes in recent times, most recently in 2011, when the reablement only service was set up. Some Councils, trying to reduce costs, have outsourced all homecare, but others like Surrey have kept a reablement component within our own Local Authority control. Many of you in reablement have a huge, and invaluable amount of experience and length of service with Surrey. This has been commented on and complimented when new recruits have come into teams in recent times. We know that social care staff in the locality offices and hospitals continue to value greatly this in-house service as the best way to help new service users come into the system, and be supported to remain safe and well and independent as far as possible at home. However these same practitioners are frustrated when they are told that there is often no capacity/availability to start a new service!? Reablement staff are being hindered in their role by a number of issues, one of the biggest being the problem of deficit hours. Staff are ready and available for work for their contracted hours, but on a very regular basis the rota is changed or altered to leave individual staff with a deficit in their work time. This then has to be made up elsewhere. Putting it simply, this system may have been ok when run locally some years ago in a different context, but it was never the intention of the service to have such banks of deficit hours in the new system. COME TO THE UNISON MEETING FOR ALL REABLEMENT STAFF SEE PAGE 3 1

UNISON believe that the current arrangement is untenable as it puts the responsibility and flexibility upon the staff. In some cases, as soon as a reablement assistant makes up some time on the deficit, another client visit drops out, just as fast. And the deficit builds up. Although there is now HR guidance to team leaders and managers as to how to try to manage this and some helpful ideas as to what can be done to reduce hours, for many staff this is still very much their number one headache at work. At the end of the day this is a service and system problem not a individual employee one. The need is there - we just need to match up the client need with the workers available. At a meeting in the Spring at Reigate Borough council which was primarily about new locality contracts, many people who attended were more worried about Deficit hours. UNISON suggested at the meeting that staff, UNISON members and non-members, get together and come to us so that collectively we could take this issue forward. As you can see from our letter to HR on page 3/4, it took a little time to organize but you did it. You sent us an impressive and heartfelt request for support, to flag up this matter AGAIN with Surrey. Over 30 workers across the two areas signed up to a petition letter which prompted our Letter to senior HR. Because the deficit hours situation has gone on for so long it has almost become the normal practice. Would it be seen as acceptable if, for example, you worked in a shop and at a quiet time you got sent home and asked to make up the hours elsewhere? We do not think so. We requested on your behalf a meeting with management and HR. This took place recently on 29 August 2013 at County hall. Sithy Hedges (UNISON Workplace Contact) and I attended. This was an informal meeting and broadly positive but nothing has changed so far on Deficit Hours. See next page for headlines from the meeting: 2

HEADLINES FROM THE UNISON MEETING WITH HR:

HR/management and seniors have been having ongoing meetings around how to make reablement service improvements going forward, in recognition that improvements were needed. They listened and were sympathetic to our/your concerns. It was especially important that someone directly from the service could give real examples of whats happening regarding deficit hours practice on the ground. Sithy had canvassed recent information from staff, and a few do not have the deficit hours problem but most do, the highest seeming to run about at 200 hrs. But the average could be around 100 hrs for staff. There was an acceptance that using annual leave to reduce deficit hours was in general not good practice. There was a verbal assurance that despite the deficit hours problem there would be no move to zero hour contracts to resolve the situation. This is very important and should allay some anxieties. There was an agreement that managers/HR do not have all the info in enough detail to yet understand why some areas run at high deficit hours whilst some other areas are lower? There was a suggestion by management/Hr reps to work together to resolve this informally, by a co design way. This is more likely to reach a consensus solution via a number of small working parties/workshops. These may be set up from October in an area by area way (but no firm dates yet).

So in a nutshell we have put the deficit hours topic back on the top of the reablement agenda and off the too difficult to solve pile. What we should do on members behalf is largely up to you. Is this enough progress to keep going down this path, or is this just likely to be a lot of warm words and little action? To take your views we have arranged an open meeting (details below). Please make an effort to come so we can update you and of course the more people who join UNISON the more effective we can be. One thing we can say in the ADULTS directorate is that if we put a constructive and professional, well put together message across to the council leadership they do take notice and work with us to look for a solution.

UNISON OPEN MEETING FOR ALL REABLEMENT STAFF WHEN: THURSDAY 10TH OCTOBER AT 2.00 3.00 PM WHERE: WOODHATCH CENTRE, WHITEBEAM DRIVE, REIGATE, SURREY RH2 7LS

If you would be interested in getting active with UNISON as a Workplace Rep or a Local Contact, please let us know. Talk to us at the meeting or contact us (details on back page) UNISONs ORIGINAL LETTER TO HR
Dear Ken Akers Re Reablement Team members feedback letter to UNISON I write to follow up our recent conversation, where I mentioned that we have received concerns from UNISON members in the East of the County, in Reablement Teams. Back in March this year, Omar led a consultation meeting regarding the new locality contracts, both in Tandridge and Reigate and Redhill. Staff attended and it was a lively and well attended debate, but the main issue for reablement staff, (as across all the teams), was not so much amendment to contract around travel time/area, but the unresolved matter of deficit hours. I met with some UNISON members afterwards and asked them to further seek the views of colleagues, who were not present and put their issues down to us collectively so we could forward this matter through the appropriate process. Although there has been a bit of a time gap, we now have a letter, (dated 21 June 2013) with 33 staff signatures, including some UNISON members and non-members, fifteen from Tandridge , eighteen from Reigate and Banstead. Essentially the concern is, that they are highly trained people with lots of experience, offering excellent service, but they are just not getting enough referrals, hence the build up of deficit hours. The suggestion is then to run a Home care service alongside reablement. I know you have plans, in the medium term, to progress the shape of Reablement service via co design model in the future headed up by Caroline Jones taking over this project from Sonya Sellar. However, given strength of staff concern that the deficit hours lead to some staff being available for contracted hours of work, week on week, but the service not being able to fulfil these hours on a regular basis, it does throw up some difficult contractual issues. Despite some creative solutions to make up hours in some teams, it would still seem to be an ongoing problem. It should not be down to our individual members, to reduce their hours to solve a current systemic issue, when the need for the service is clearly greater than ever. The block seems to be, in matching the community need for reablement with the staff that are employed to get out to do the job. Given this group of employees have a similar issue, may suggest we meet initially informally, to work with HR and Management to resolve this long standing issue and prevent the need to go down the Collective Disputes Policy. It may well be that there are some particular local issues at play in the East of the County, in Particular? I would hope that I could ask one of our key members, from each of the two staff groups to join me as reps in this process as obviously they would have the detailed picture on the ground. I

Surrey County Branch

0208 541 9091 unison@surreycc.gov.uk UNISON Room G17, County Hall Penrhyn Road Kingston-upon-Thames KT1 2DN

I would welcome your thoughts on above. Yours sincerely Alan Clyne

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Surrey County Branch

0208 541 9091 unison@surreycc.gov.uk UNISON Room G17, County Hall Penrhyn Road Kingston-upon-Thames KT1 2DN 5

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