Scottish Association of Chaplains in Healthcare

• AGM 2004
• AGM 2003
• AGM 2002
• AGM 2001

AGM 2005

The SACH AGM was held on
Monday 24 October 2005
at the Conference Centre,
Stirling Royal Infirmary.

• President's Report 2005
• Minutes of AGM 2005
• Minutes of AGM (MS Word Version)
• Previous AGMs

President's Report 2005

  Rev Derek Brown (President)

I'm sure that most of you will have watched “A Question of Sport” on the TV at one time or another. There was, if you recall, a round of questions called ‘home and away', the idea being that the home question was about the individual's own sport while the away one could be about anything. The contestant got more points for answering an away question correctly because it was felt to be that bit harder.

That's not to say that home questions are necessarily any easier! At a recent quiz night in aid of the hospice one of the questions was ‘According to the Bible when did God create the sun and moon?' all eyes in my team focussed on me. I confidently stated that it was on the wrong day.

As I was looking at what's been happening over the last year the items seemed to fall into one of two categories, home and away. Let's start at home.

HR Forum

As most of you know the Board of National Mission of the Church of Scotland ceased to exist after the last General Assembly. It was the employer of most chaplains in Scotland. Before its demise it began the process of negotiating with Health Boards the transfer of its employees to NHS contracts. This process seems to have halted for no apparent reason and through the auspices of the SCDC we have been asking that this be re-started as soon as possible. As a body representing chaplains it is of no little concern to us that those chaplains still technically employed by the church will have less favourable terms and conditions compared to those directly employed especially when Agenda for Change takes effect.

QIS Standards

It's a measure of the seriousness with which spiritual care is now being viewed that the body concerned with the quality of healthcare delivered in the country hosted a conference to report on the work of the group that was looking into standards in spiritual care. Rather than me tell you what these might be I will refer you to Gillian Munro's article in the current issue of the journal and to David Mitchell who was very much involved in the standards for palliative care. QIS invited interested parties to make a case for including either good practice statements or standards for spiritual care to the NHS. To that end I'm delighted to say that Gillian has agreed to represent SACH on the reassembled Scoping group.

SCDC

The Spiritual Care Development Committee was set up by the Scottish Executive to provide NHS Scotland with a multi faith perspective on spiritual care matters. It also has representation from people involved with Patient Focus at the NHS and the new Health Council. Having all these parties on board provides for an extremely useful forum to share ideas, foster good relationships and for having direct access to the Health Minister through one of his top advisors.

Journal

I like to think of the journal as the jewel in SACH's crown. The executive is very grateful for the hard work that is put into each issue and for the quality of the material. We're delighted to support the editors in any way we can.

Now what about the away topics? A word of caution- all of them have a bearing on home!

CAAB

The Chaplaincy Academic and Accreditation Board was set up as an advisory body to the professional organisations. It has a specific remit looking at, for example, the knowledge and skills required to become a chaplain and accrediting courses which can be part of CPD. Earlier this year the Executive agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding which sets out the relationships between the associations. For the time being CAAB will be funded proportionately by the three professional bodies but in time it will become self-financing through levying course fees.

Code of Conduct

This is an away topic because it was written down in England but was extensively commented on by the Executive and other groups of chaplains and individuals. The UK Professional Bodies which chaplains join exist to promote the very best standards of care. As part of that commitment we have had Code of Conduct to inform and advise our members. However it was beginning to show its age as the pace of change in health care has increased, and the complexity of modern services and user expectations has grown. “In the light of this the three bodies agreed to publish a new Code which sensitively locates chaplains within a framework of conduct that other staff and patients will recognize.”

There was some concern that there was too little time to comment on the draft but it is a dynamic document and it will be regularly reviewed.

Joint Initiative

This time last year I mentioned the initiative of SACH and AHPCC to be an honest broker for the various entities with an interest in chaplaincy in England and Wales. There has been a level of misunderstanding over the recent past and our fear was that a lot of good work could be overlooked as a result. Some issues such as registration and CPD have a direct bearing on chaplains in Scotland whether NHS or not and we felt that perhaps we could help stimulate discussions and dialogue.

This initiative has been well received and it has been fruitful to the extent that the three professional bodies are working very closely on matters of common concern, such as registration, the code of conduct, and academic standards. This clearly makes sense when resources and personnel are limited.

There was a proposal which came out of discussions with South Yorkshire SHA to set up a single UK wide chaplaincy association and we gave this idea much serious consideration in the Executive. It was not without merit but we felt that setting up another organisation was perhaps not the best way to move forward at this time. There would be too many unanswered questions about national and specialist concerns to be addressed in the time frame that was being proposed. However channels of communication have been opened up and perhaps some of these proposals can be revisited when some of the big issues, such as registration, have been resolved. That will not be for some time, however. You may have read the letter from the heads of the three organisations on the website which outlines our current position.

ENHCC

This really is an away topic! I have been serving on the committee of the network and we have just come back from a meeting in Istanbul where the EU did feature prominently, but not Turkey's part in it. We have had negotiations with high level officials about spiritual care and there is a proposal to have input into a paper being written for the Commissioner of Health on palliative care throughout Europe. You can read about some of this in the current issue of the journal.

Getting chaplaincy onto the EU agenda is quite an achievement and we want to build on that to help further the development of chaplaincy in Eastern Europe and consolidate what we have. Who knows we might even sort of the knotty problem of Data protection!

Top

Derek Brown welcomed members to the AGM. Worship was led by Ken Russell.

Attending
Derek Brown, Margaret Browning, Margery Collin. J Stanley Cook, Fred Coutts, Sue Duncan, James Grier, Muriel Knox, Chris Levison, Ian McDonald, Kitty McDonald, Fergus McLachlan, David Mitchell, Anne Mulligan, Joyce Nicol, Mark Rodgers, Ken Russell, Monica Stewart, John Thomson, Stuart Webster, David Young

Apologies
Jim Allardyce, Bob Bell, Sandra Bell, William Bristow, Murray Chalmers, Marian Cowie, Jackie Cozzi, Raymond Deans, James Falconer, Michael Hickford, Margaret Kitson, Clare Lockhart, Stewart McGregor, Iain McRitchie, Gillian Munro, Georgina Nelson, Sylvia Spencer, Iain Telfer

Minutes

The Minutes of the AGM held on 26 October 2004 were approved, proposed by Fred Coutts and seconded by Chris Levison.

President's Report
Derek Brown reported on the work of the Executive over the past year. (copy of report attached). He concluded the report by thanking Monica Stewart who was standing down as Secretary after four years.
Membership figures were as follows: 141 members of which 35 whole-time, 4 whole-time equivalent, 75 part-time and 27 associate. Fred Coutts reminded members that the recruitment of new members was essential if the organisation was to grow and that this was something we should all do. The most effective method of recruiting was through word of mouth.
Derek's report was followed by questions and discussion. Ian McDonald raised the issue of direct employment. It would be helpful to know whether a picture was emerging nationally since many health boards were waiting to see what this might look like before making any decisions themselves. John Thomson expressed frustration at the fact that very little progress seemed to have been made. Concern was expressed that those chaplains who were not directly employed would be disadvantaged because they did not come under Agenda for Change. Chris Levison assured members that transfer of employment from the Church to the NHS would happen even though the time-scale was unclear.
David Mitchell noted that Derek's brokering skills had been much appreciated by chaplaincy bodies in England and he thanked Derek for his part in discussions.

Treasurer's Report
In Linda's absence, Derek presented the Accounts. These were duly adopted, proposed by David Mitchell and seconded by Muriel Knox.

Journal Report
David Mitchell reported on the Journal. Volume 8 No 2 was the most recent edition. The Journal continued to receive very positive feedback and was gradually increasing in credibility in the academic world. The following people had joined the editorial board since the last AGM: Rev Dr Janet Foggie, Dr Ewan Kelly, Rev Iain Telfer and Dr Heather Walton. It was hoped that members of the Board represented a broad cross section of chaplaincy bodies. An increasing number of articles from England were being submitted. This was seen as a positive development. After experiencing difficulties, the CHCC Journal was now in production again. There was an annual subscription of £20. David encouraged members to subscribe. David thanked the Executive for their support and thanked Fred Coutts for his help on the web. Members were encouraged to submit articles for consideration.
In answer to the question, who subscribes to the Journal , David informed members that individuals, academic institutions and libraries were amongst those who subscribed. Requests came from all over the world. It was disappointing, however, that 4 Scottish universities (St Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen) did not subscribe.
Derek thanked David and the other members of the editorial board for their work.

Training and Development Unit
Chris Levison reported on the past year (copy of report attached). In an addendum to his report Chris informed members that the October edition of Nursing Management Journal was dedicated to spiritual care. Chris agreed to email details to all chaplains.
Derek thanked Chris for his report.

Elections
Derek began by thanking the following members who had completed their terms on the Executive: Sue Duncan, Hilda Smith and Monica Stewart. He also thanked Fred Coutts and Margaret Clark for their joint work as membership secretary and Fred for his continuing work as webmaster.

President
Derek was willing to continue in post for one further year. There being no other nominations, he was duly re-elected, proposed by Anne Mulligan and seconded by Sue Duncan.

Secretary
Dawn Allan was proposed by David Mitchell and seconded by Monica Stewart. There being no other nominations, Dawn was elected to the post.

Treasurer
Linda Stevens was prepared to stand for a further year. There being no other nominations, she was duly re-elected to the post, proposed by Fred Coutts and seconded by Chris Levison.

Ordinary members
The following were elected as ordinary members:
Margery Collin, proposed by Chris Levison and seconded by James Grier
Ken Russell, proposed by Ian McDonald and seconded by Stan Cook
Mark Rodgers, proposed by Muriel Knox and seconded by Anne Mulligan

Derek introduced the afternoon session. Rev Chris Swift, President of the College of Healthcare Chaplains, spoke on The Fate of Chaplaincy in the 21 st Century. This was followed by questions and discussion.

The day concluded with tea and coffee.