MINUTES OF ACC COUNCIL MEETING

Held at:

On:

 Tuesday 18th March 2003 at 11.15 a.m.

Caroline Baird, Lyndsey Connell, Val Davison, Simon Larkins, Gordon Lowther, Una Maye
Tony Parkin, Kim Smith

1

Mike Creasy, Richard Hall, Rod Howell, Debbie Lillington, Rob Morgan, Selwyn Roberts, Nick Telford.

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Minutes of the Previous Meeting 

page 2 item 5 "Delivery of A grade training" final sentence to read "Val Davison will talk to Sue Hill (Chief Scientific Officer)".

page 6 item 9 line 3 "John Corolla" should read "John Crolla".

3

Safety Adviser's Report

No report had been received.

Under this item Lorraine Gaunt raised the problem in her laboratory with sensitisation to microscope oil. This had caused skin irritation and respiratory problems. Lorraine Gaunt had informed Selwyn Roberts of the matter prior to the Council meeting.

4

NEQAS

4.1 The appointed scheme organiser, Dr Ros Hastings will be taking up the post in June/July. As NEQAS scheme organiser she will be invited to attend Council meetings.

ACTION Secretary to invite Scheme Organiser.

4.2 Heads of Departments have agreed in principle to an increase in the annual NEQAS fees to fund the full time post of the organiser. Tony Parkin, the new Chair of the Steering Committee, was asked that the Committee could give an indication of the probable cost. The next Steering committee meeting is to be held on Thursday the 20^th March. Teresa Davies will be standing down as chair at this meeting and Tony Parkin will commence his term as chair.

4.3 Val Davison will be replaced as NQAAP chair by Roger Mountford.

4.4 With respect to the outstanding NEQAS rounds, the postnatal round reports have been issued and slides returned to participating laboratories.

The haematology AML round is almost complete and reports should be issued shortly.

4.5 CPA EQA has provided pilot funding for a web based scheme in cytogenetics.

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CPA

No Report.

6

Education and Training Committee (ETC)

6.1 The ETC met in January. There was a review of the membership of the committee. The aim is to have a basic core committee which can co-opt other people for specific tasks or sub-groups as required. The core committee is as follows:

A review of the A grade training programme is being undertaken and a new revised programme will be issued for the autumn 2003 intake of trainees.

In view of the retention problems noted in the profession an audit of all the trainees who exited their training in 2000 will be undertaken to see how many have remained in the profession.

Changes to the A grade Assessment Process: 
This was initially raised at the Heads of Department meeting and was discussed at the last ETC meeting. The assessment process will now be a two-stage process. In fully accredited training laboratories, the first assessment will be undertaken by an assigned external assessor, at the trainee’s laboratory, as currently. Subsequent assessments will be performed internally, by assessors who work in the same laboratory. The external assessor which undertook the first assessment will receive internal assessment reports from the laboratory in a standard format and can still monitor trainee’s written work.

There is no change to the assessment of the project module. The assigned external assessor will mark the project.

The final assessment will be performed externally by any two ETC assessors but not necessarily the assigned external assessor. The final assessment will be booked via an assessment co-ordinator 6-8 weeks in advance so that multiple assessments can be performed on the same day.

As an interim arrangement ETC assessors will act as internal assessors in their own laboratories whilst internal assessors are being trained For laboratories who do not have an ETC assessor on site, the assessment process will not change and continue to be external.

It is intended that this modified assessment system can be applied to autumn 2002 intake trainees.

Training of Internal Assessors: 
Val Davison is organising a two day training course for assessors in collaboration with local WDC. The options for training internal assessors will be discussed at the next ETC meeting.

It is intended that eventually all accredited laboratories will have two or three trained assessors within their departments. Internal assessors trained by the ACC will be B16 and above, MRCPath part 1 is desirable.

Council ratified the changes to the assessment process and Kim Smith undertook to inform Heads of Departments of the changes.

6.4 Delivery of Training for A grades:
Lorraine Gaunt reported that she has been exploring the option of an academic partner. This is being taken forwarded by Sue Hill (CSO). Heather Ward is scoping options for centralised training of groups of trainees eg short residential courses and study days are being considered. Trainers from various departments will be asked to contribute. This will be discussed at the next ETC meeting on 14^th April.

It was noted that if there was a change to the delivery of A grade training which resulted in an increase in cost then the extra funding would need to be identified and flagged with WDC prior to budget setting.

6.5 John Wolstenholme reported that North Eastern and North East Thames regions had received funding to produce material to aid recruitment to the NHS for England and Wales.

6.6 Technical Training – Val Davison

The technical training report that had been previously circulated to Council describing the outcome of the 2 year pilot of the competence based training of Genetic Technologists was discussed. Val reported that in the labs who had participated the pilots had been very successful and that there had been favourable feedback from the technical staff involved. As a result of the pilots a revised set of competencies have been produced and comments from Council were invited prior to the next ETC meeting on 14^th April.

ACTION Val Davison to email secretary revised competency document for circulation to Council. Comments to Val Davison copied to Secretary by 8 April.

Technical report to be appended to minutes.

The pilots had shown that there is inter department variation in the job descriptions of MTO 2s in particular whether this grade of staff was able to perform chromosome analysis.

There is also variation in the entry qualification for MTOs. Most departments recruit graduates but this is not the case in all laboratories. It remains to be seen what changes may occur as a result of the proposal for these staff to become State Registered in the future.

A certificate to be issued on completion of competencies would be desirable.

With respect to Professional Representation of technical staff, Council discussed the possible role of the ACC in representing technical staff. There was consensus that the ACC recognises the immediate need of technical staff to have representation and that in principal the ACC is willing to explore incorporating MTOs into their professional group. It was decided however that prior to any consultation of the membership a working party will have to be formed to explore the key issues. A temporary sub-group of Council was proposed to decide on the remit and membership of the working party. The sub-group will be composed of Kim Smith, Lorraine Gaunt, Katie Waters and Val Davison. Council agreed this.

ACTION Working group to agree remit and membership.

7

Professional Standards Committee

The first meeting of the Best Practice Guidelines Group is to be held on the 29^th April. Fiona Ross and Ros Hastings have accepted invitations to join the committee. Council will invite Edna Maltby to next council meeting to give a progress report. This will be in an ex officio capacity.

ACTION: Secretary to invite to Edna Maltby to council.

8

–As required by rule 10.1.

Tony Parkin was the only candidate nominated and was elected unopposed.

The next meeting is on Friday 21^st March and there has been no meeting since the last Council meeting. The directors of the ACS will need to be informed as to the appointment of our new chair.

ACTION Secretary to write to Dr P Sharp.

A subgroup of the ACS has drafted the Standards of proficiency for Clinical Scientists as required by the HPC.

Last met on 28^th February. There have been some changes on the committee. The Chair Elect is now Professor Julian Sampson who will take over from Prof Neva Haites at the AGM in York (September). The new secretary is Graham Taylor (Head of the Molecular Laboratory in Leeds). He is replacing Rob Elles with immediate effect.

Joint Committee on Medical Genetics (JMCG). The membership is being reviewed, however, there needs to be some clarification from the chair as to how many places the BSHG is allocated.

The Green Paper in Genetics is likely to be further delayed, however, there is a possibility that it may be released on the 25^th April (anniversary of the Watson & Crick publication). The BSHG will prepare a response in anticipation. This would involve the chair, vice-chair, secretary and the chairs of the constituent organisations. The Nuffield and Scottish and Welsh offices are already preparing responses.

Membership of GenCAG. Naomi Brecker has written to Neva Haites as chair of the BSHG. The BSHG nominates six representatives. Current members have been asked if they wish to continue or not. Most do and this is supported by the BSHG. It was however thought that some mechanism to ensure rotation into the group should be put in place.

The ACC has been asked to submit the names of the top ten UK cytogeneticists to Neva. This is to enable Peter Harper to compile a history and archive of Genetics. The JLC agreed to draw up a list.

ACTION: JLC to prepare a list of top 10 UK cytogeneticists.

8b.3  Joint Committee on Medical Genetics (JMCG)

Katie Waters attended the latest meeting on 14^th January and reported that Dr S Morgan has been appointed as the new RCPath Training Representative.

The Consent and Confidentiality Report has not yet been finalised

Requirements for training posts for A grade training. Steve Abbs has drafted a report on Recruitment and Retention, which highlighted the shortfall in the number of trainees trained compared to requirements. The report also reported the difference between cytogenetics and molecular genetics. The document will be sent to CEOs of WDCs. The final version will be sent to the ETC and from there circulated to Heads of Departments.

Contract Currencies progress is slow but still on going.

RCPath SAC. John Crolla reported that more people are sitting MRCPath part II.

8b.4  Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.

The ACC has received an invitation to attend a meeting on the 7^th April on the UK Bio-Bank. If available a representative may attend.

8b.5  Federation of Healthcare Science (FHCS)

The life sciences division met on the 13^th January at the IBMS to discuss a strategy, which would allow the groups, represented to work together. A proposal was made, discussed and later circulated. This was circulated to all council members and effectively accepted.

The next meeting of the entire representation is on Monday 24^th March when two members of each professional body/group are invited to attend. Katie Waters and Simon Larkins are to attend.

8b.6 National Occupational Standards (NOS)

Seven representatives are requested for various generic groups the following were suggested by council:

ACTION Secretary to invite nominees to attend workshops on behalf of the profession.

9

GenCAG – Val Davison

No meeting since December 2002. Membership is under review and Val Davison has been returned for 1 year by the BSHG. The next meeting is on 8^th May.

10

ACC Scientific Committee

10.1 Rod Howell placed an item in the BSHG newsletter canvassing for a potential new chair. The response was limited so Council has decided not to continue to have this committee. Individual projects such as CAD and the CVS database work well independently and regularly report back to Council. It was felt that new projects when identified could receive ACC support on an ad hoc basis, which will involve recruiting suitable members to form Working Groups as necessary.

The question was raised as to why the reference laboratories had not agreed to pick up this vital work. Kim Smith reported that they had been approached but they did not have the necessary funding and were unable to help. Val Davison agreed to raise this issue with the DoH via GenCAG when the opportunity arose.

No report

10.4 CVS Database – report from John Wolstenholme

It is hoped that there will be access to the database information soon. There has been interest expressed from Australian laboratories in adding their data to the database. John and Kim Smith are to pursue this.

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SAC in Genetics, Royal College of Pathologists

No report (have not met).

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JLC Report

Topics included were:

l The Healthcare Science Recruitment Resource Centre,

l Sue Hill gave an update on the progress made by the FHCS

l National Recruitment Campaign

l Update on ideas for activity and public relations

l Requests for further support from the DoH

13

Treasurer’s Report

The accounts for 2002 were accepted by Council.

14

ACC Registered Office

John Wolstenholme has contacted the Friendly Societies to find out how we can change our registered office from the Royal Institute of Public Health to the BSHG Office, Birmingham Women’s Hospital. This is a straight forward process requiring paperwork which John has completed but also requires the ACC to hold a special general meeting to consult and gain consent from the membership. The special general meeting will be held just prior to this year’s AGM at York. It will be necessary to mail all members to inform them of the rule changes and the meeting at which it will be discussed. The specific rules are 2.1 and 2.2.

15

25^th Anniversary of the ACC

Mike Creasy and Malcolm Ferguson Smith are organising an event for the ACC Spring meeting in Glasgow

16

: BSHG elections

This has been covered in the Chair's Report.

17

Correspondence

The ACC has received a subscription invoice of £250 for the Scientific and Technical Organisation for Parliament. It was agreed that the subscription would not be renewed.

18

Matters Arising

Council minutes 7c "Rapid Prenatal Diagnosis". Kim Smith believed this not to be correct. Val Davison said she would clarify the situation with Naomi Brecker (DoH).

19

Applications for membership

With respect to membership of the BSHG, John Wolstenholme informed the council that the ACC contributed the largest proportion with 518 members (compared to 428 for the CGS and 377 for the CMGS).

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Date of Next Meeting