Published: 12/05/2005, Volume II5, No. 5955 Page 12
Three small words, one big ambulance trust headache. Agenda for Change is proving to be a big thorn in the side of the majority of England's 32 ambulance trusts.
While it is not exactly proving to be a walk in the park for other NHS organisations, even with the unsocial hours element dealt with for the time being, ambulance trusts have almost had to deal with mutiny in recent months from technicians unhappy with being nationally matched to band four.
Although Unison recently won a breakthrough by agreeing a national profile for more-skilled technicians - advanced ambulance practitioners - one southern human resources director is blunt.
'The average technician will get a pay rise [under Agenda for Change] well into double figures. Paramedics are in the same band as physiotherapists, dieticians, radiologists and so on - if technicians really think they should be in the same band, then to be honest they're being unrealistic.
'To some extent, paramedics are lucky to be there, given they do not have to attain a degree to qualify like most of the other profiles, ' the HR director added.
Whether the new profiles - published at the end of April - will be enough to persuade ambulance workers to stick with the new pay deal remains to be seen. As another HR director points out, ambulance staff can, unlike the majority of their peers in other parts of the NHS, decide to stay on their existing terms as most are on local trust-based contracts rather than Whitley.
But what might seem like a technical HR hitch may actually shape up to be a thorn in the side of those managers keen to see their trusts at the centre of the urgent care modernisation drive as local health economies turn their attention to the 2008 emergency bed days target.
A northern operations director feels the management impetus to modernise on their patch is strong enough to bring about cultural change throughout the organisation. 'We are looking at skill-mixes to ensure we can add variety to people's jobs so they can feel empowered to make the patient experience better, rather than just being constricted to the bog-standard response to a 999 call - our workforce is embracing the change.'
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