MR DEREK FEELEY, MR GEOFF HUGGINS, DR NADINE HARRISON

11 OCTOBER 2007

  Q360  Willie Rennie: This question is about Reservists. Do you know how many Reservists work within the NHS? Have you got a figure for that at all?

  Mr Feeley: I do not have that. We could provide you with a note.

  Q361  Willie Rennie: We have heard from the British Medical Association that it is a disincentive to work in the Reservists in terms of your career, that it has a detrimental effect on your career. They said specifically: "given the choice of two equal candidates for a consultant post [an employer is likely] to appoint the candidate with no reserve liability". They went on to say: "reserve liability ... will often be considered a handicap and a disincentive to recruit". Is that your understanding within the NHS? Do you think there is a problem with recruiting Reservists from the NHS?

  Mr Feeley: I have not had that issue put to me as a problem previously.

  Q362  Chairman: But if you were in charge of appointing a consultant, would it not be your natural inclination to choose someone who is able to give you more time for their appointment and who was not likely to be whisked away to Afghanistan or Iraq?

  Mr Feeley: We would expect that appointment to be made purely on the merits of the candidate.

  Willie Rennie: I find this absolutely astonishing. I feel embarrassed, in fact, that we have come here, I have dragged my colleagues from down South—I did not have to drag them up, they wanted to come up really—and there are so many questions we have asked you that you do not know the answers to. If you are not the right guys perhaps we could get the right guys in London in front of us. There are so many questions that are obviously important questions that you have been unable to answer. Some of them you have been able to answer but this last one on Reservists, the bit about dentists and Service families, so much you have been unable to answer and, honestly, I feel embarrassed that you do not seem to have a handle on it. If you do not have a handle on it, does someone else have a handle on it, and if they do not, what is being done about it?

  Chairman: Do you want to answer that? Kevan Jones?

  Q363  Mr Jones: Can I ask you in this way: have you given any guidance or strategy to health boards about their policy on employing Reservists?

  Mr Feeley: No.

  Mr Huggins: To be clear, were we to say to health boards that they should offer an advantage—

  Mr Jones: I am not saying that. I am just saying, have you given any guidance about how they should treat people who are in the Reservists, for example, whether they be nurses or anyone else? For example, I know if you go to my local strategic health authority, you have the Reservist unit in Newcastle which is completely staffed by local NHS people and they have a very positive attitude towards it and have a policy on it about time off, training and career development.

  Q364  Chairman: Would you like to answer that question? Have you given any guidance?

  Mr Huggins: I am not aware that we operate a separate policy which is different from any other policy which applies to Reservists in public life.

  Q365  Chairman: Do you actually have a view as to whether it is a good thing to employ Reservists?

  Mr Huggins: Certainly we have a strong view that it is good to employ people from a diversity of experience and background and Reservists is one of those. It is valuable to us and it is valuable to the wider public good. That certainly would be our view.

  Q366  Chairman: But that view would be based on diversity rather than on the need to support our Armed Forces.

  Mr Huggins: No. I certainly said also that there was a wider public good in supporting the Armed Forces as well as the value that we take. There is a value that we take as an organisation and the wider state takes in terms of the commitment that our organisations can give.

  Q367  Chairman: But this is a view that you have not promulgated to the NHS Boards?

  Mr Feeley: I referred earlier to guidance that we issued to boards about relations with the Armed Forces. The guidance was issued in March 2006 and it says in that guidance: "In support of the twin health goals required by defence, ie a trained and deployable healthcare capability and the maintenance of a fit and health Service population" etc., that the "DMS will benefit from a range of things which include assistance with loan or secondment to the DMS of NHS personnel to fill civilian medical appointments, NHS expertise to assist in the development overall of defence-wide health needs, encouraging and supporting NHS staff to become members of the volunteer Reserve Forces enabling them to develop new skills, both professional and personal", so in our guidance to boards there is that kind of encouragement and support.

  Q368  Chairman: That is very good to hear but you were not aware of it.

  Mr Feeley: I perhaps misunderstood your question which seemed to me to be about do we give boards guidance about how they should use Reservists.

  Q369  Chairman: Mr Feeley, if you were not aware of it when you gave your answer a few minutes ago to Kevan Jones, how can you expect the NHS Boards to be aware of it and how can you expect the employers of people who are actually deciding whether to choose a consultant or somebody else to be aware of this encouragement for Reservists? It seems to me that there has been no concentration on this issue at all.

  Mr Feeley: Other than, as I said, we have given boards guidance.

  Mr Jones: One line.

  Chairman: But you do not monitor how it is followed through.

  Q370  Robert Key: Chairman, we have already asked for a note on how many of your clinicians serve in the Reserve Forces. I wonder if you could also include the statistic for the number of consultants and other clinicians in hospitals in Scotland whose salary is paid for by the Ministry of Defence. This is quite a common arrangement. My own foundation hospital in Salisbury has at any one time between five and eight clinicians, including consultants, who are Reservists, and indeed I met three of them yesterday at Strensall in Yorkshire who are about to deploy to Afghanistan and one from Ninewells in Dundee. It is seen as a huge benefit to the hospitals concerned that they have men and women with this expertise. If nothing else, they have an extra dimension to trauma service that they can provide. They are the only people who are likely to have had to cope on a daily basis with blast wounds, shooting and so on. Perhaps if we could ask for the statistics it would act as a stimulant in Scotland to encouraging a higher profile for the work of Reservist clinicians.

  Mr Feeley: We will provide such a note. 2

  Chairman: That would be very helpful. Thank you.

  Q371  Mr Jenkins: The MoD says, and this might appear to be a sick joke after this hearing but it is not, in future it wants to work more closely with the NHS in providing healthcare for Service personnel. What advantage or disadvantage would you consider would arise if the MoD came to you and said, "We would like to work more closely with you in providing healthcare for our Service personnel"?

  Mr Feeley: There are a range of areas that we could build on. We could do more around information sharing. There is a deal of work that could be done around prevention and anticipation of health need, which I think touches on some of the points that were made earlier about alcohol and substance misuse. I take the Committee's point that we could do more around the promotion of the joint benefits of particular skill sets of clinicians. I would welcome such an overture.

  Chairman: I think it would be good also if you did not rely on these four meetings a year to form your sole relationship with the Ministry of Defence because what the Ministry of Defence does and what you do ought to be completely integrated for the good of our Armed Forces. If there are no further questions then I would like to thank our witnesses and declare the meeting closed.

2 See Ev 149.