Message from Harry Moseley,

I have received a message from Stan Batchelor: 

I have had a meeting about this with the new Senior Management that
manage
> Associates and am happy to share this with anyone who contacts me by
phone
> (on no. below). 
> 
> Regards
> 
> Stan Batchelor
> 
> Stan Batchelor, Consultant Physicist, Honorary Senior Lecturer to
KCL
> 
> Head of the Radiation Safety Section, Medical Physics Department,
> Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust 
> 
>  Radiation Protection Adviser and Laser Protection Adviser to the
Trust
> and KCL (Guy's, St Thomas' and Waterloo Campuses)
> 
> telephone: 020 7188 3810	fax 020 7188 3796 


>>> [log in to unmask] 2/28/2006 10:29 AM >>>
Dear All,

I was wondering whether anyone else is having to come to grips with the
new
contract that the HC is imposing on their LPA 'associates' who go out
and
help to inspect private hospitals and clinics on their behalf?

We've been doing such work for many years, and until now have been
charging
for our time plus a modest uplift which represents an income
generation/profit element for the Trust - which is obviously desperate
for
all the money it can get these days!

However, the HC is now sending out 'secondment contracts', which asks
for
the salary and on-cost (NI + pension) details of the Secondee (i.e.
me), and
which requests the Seconding Organisation (i.e. this Trust) to make my
services available to the HC to perform duties as required. Payment by
the
HC to the Trust  for my services will in future be based solely on the
number of hours I've spent on the inspection (including report-writing
and
travel time) as a percentage of my salary plus on-costs. In other
words, the
HC expects in future to get my services at cost price, rather than us
selling a service to them at a particular rate which the Trust deems to
be
appropriate.

The HC people are arguing that the HC is a 'publicly-funded, non
profit-making organisation, as are NHS Trusts, and therefore they would
hope
that another publicly funded organisation would operate in a non
profit-making manner'. But this would seem to fly in the face of
reality
these days, with many Trusts being millions of pounds in the red and
scrabbling round for every penny they can claw in through income
generation.
And of course it ignores the real costs that Trusts incur in getting
their
LPA's up to the standard that the HC expects to find when they use the
LPA's
expertise ... the cost of training, professional registration, CPD
maintenance and the rest.

So the questions are: what are others doing about this contract? Is it
being
excessively mercenary to expect to sell our services to the HC at a
rate
which includes an element of income generation for the Trust? Or is the
HC
being excessively naive in expecting Trusts to hand over their staff
for
greater or lesser periods of time when they see no financial benefit
from
doing so? Thoughts appreciated!

P.S. In the last email received from the HC, they state that 'the
issues you
raise have never been raised before'. Is this true?

P.P.S. In the same email, they also say that 'a couple of associate
LPA's
have now raised this'. Hmm... :-)


Al.

-- 

Dr Al Crawford
Medical Physics Department
Queen's Medical Centre
Nottingham NG7 2UH
UK

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