Ensuring the Lawful Use of Digital Signatures for Consulting Agreements in the United Kingdom

How to eSign a document: digital signature lawfulness for Consulting Agreement in United Kingdom

hello my name's Keith Brent I'm a consultant pediatrician and I'm the chair of the bm's Consultants committee you may or may not be aware but big things are happening at the moment and these will affect every consultant and every Junior to be a consultant the government wants a contract variation it's important to note that this would not be the same as in 2003 when people had the option of remaining on their current or the old contract what the government want is a contract variation your contract would change so why are we here well the honest answer is that we the BMA didn't really ask for these negotiations they were demanded by the government and employers and they were demanded with the threat of imposition of a contract if we didn't enter negotiations you may remember that in the summer Jeremy Hunt called the BMA out of touch with its members and a roadblock to reforms that will save lives so that leads me on to their stated aims their stated aim is to facilitate all types of 7-Day working not just urgent in emergency but elective as well and doing that by changing the contract you'll see on the slide various changes that they want to bring about to the contract it's important to remember that they want to make this change to 7-Day working without any new recurrent money for either Consultants or Juniors we support 7-Day working indeed you might say but we already work 7 days yes for emergencies indeed we do but we're perfectly prepared to talk with the government and employers about improvements that can be made to improve the care of patients but we do think that is likely to cost money it's important for you to realize that an absolute Cardinal thing for the government is that they want to remove schedule 3 paragraph 6 I know it sounds very tedious referring to a particular clause in a contract but that one really is important you may recall that during the summer Jeremy Hunter's repeatedly talked of Consultants having an opt out well of course we don't have an opt out out it's that Clause that he refers to and that's the Clause that allows us to decline non-emergency work during antisocial hours of course no consultant can decline emergency care of patients and I can't imagine that any ever would but that's how it's been portrayed as being an optout all of this is done on a background that I'm sure you're all aware of and I don't really need to tell you about that our real income has dropped markedly over the last few years so what changes are suggested well the first and biggest change would be to the basic pay Arrangements at the moment our current scale has multiple increments with increases every few years up to a top salary reached after about 20 years the new pay scale would just have two points there would be a lower starting salary at the moment the talk is of about about £ 71,000 and a lower top pay point about £95,000 but that £95,000 would be reached for most consultants in about 5 years instead of the 14 that it currently takes to get that sort of level and that might well be better suited to a career average pension scheme as the scheme now is we would of course want to try and negotiate some pay protection for existing Consultants but that sort of detail has yet to be decided what do the government plan about antisocial hourss what's being discussed there well clearly this is portrayed as being the basis of the of the change to contracts that out of hours work needs to increase to meet a 7-Day service and I've already said that there won't be any recurrent money to facilitate that we're exploring various models of how work in less social hours could be paid the government have said that one of their intentions is that people who are currently working more onerous out of hours rotors would receive more pay but it's very likely that any extra money moved to those Consultants would be taken from other Consultants we're negotiating a range of safeguards that's very important to us to limit for example the number of your weekends that could be interrupted by either emergency or elective care but all of the detail of that is still to be negotiated I've already mentioned clinical excellence awards we know that the clinic excellence awards scheme is not universally popular but it is a significant amount of money in the overall consultant pay package this may surprise you but clinical excellence awards are not currently contractual and so you may remember that over the last few years successive secretaries of State have reduced the amount of money available for clinical excellence awards first at a national level and then at a local level and we're also aware that some trusts have actually not held award rounds at all a potential benefit of a new contract and a promise being held out to us is that although the clinical excellence awards scheme would be abolished there would be a new performance pay scheme and that would be contractual and the funds for it would be ring fanged this would be quite a different scheme employers want a system of local Awards which would not be permanent unlike the current clinical exence Awards and not pensionable although that may may actually have tax benefits I've already mentioned that those of you who already hold local clinical excellence awards the government's intention is to remove those we do have significant concerns about several of the things the government wants to change and I've already mentioned several of those the removal of that Clause schedule 3 paragraph 6 the right to decline non-emergency work in antisocial hours the lowest starting based salary potential Financial loss by more experienced Consultants including the loss of existing clinical excellence awards but employers are Keen to point out that there are some potential benefits I've mentioned that the pay scale may be more suited to a career average pension scheme they will say that there will be faster access to a higher salary that is me getting to around £95,000 in about 5 years and they're also Keen to point out that the cea money would be contractual now and there have been some reassurances about guaranteed supporting professional activity Time Spa time but we can't say for sure or anywhere close to that what the final deal will look like and certainly not how it would work for individual Consultants but as soon as we have that information we will share it with you so what is happening well we the BMA Consultants committee voted to re-enter negotiations in September of this year I think the honest way to say that is that it was the least bad option facing us we wanted to try to improve what was being threatened for imposition on Consultants particularly on new starters so we are currently in negotiations and we are negotiating in good faith in these negotiations we want to try and get the fairest deal for consultants in these and I hope I've made it clear difficult times any deal that comes out of this will be put out to a ballot of consultants and more senior trainees in the early part of next year and prior to that we will organize a conference of lnc chairs and also Road shows around the country to explain in detail what is the best contract that we've been able to achieve through these negotiations please remember that the government have said if we refuse to take up this new contract that they will impose their new contract would be the only contract available to new starters and anybody moving between consultant posts I've mentioned several times about removing clinical excellence awards from existing holders and the threat is that people remaining on the old contract the real value of that old contract would decline with time as there were no more pay increases so what am I asking you to do at the moment given that I can't give you a huge amount of detail yet well I'm asking you to get involved and please don't just don't just blame the BMA remember you are the BMA you the members you're the BMA the Protectors of the medical profession and of patients please let your colleagues know that big things are happening encourage them to watch this video read the materials that we're sending out and come to meetings we are very keen as officers of your Consultants committee to come to your local medical staff committee meetings and explain what we can about what faces all of us so please if you've got a meeting invite us and if you don't yet have a meeting organize one and invite us and we'll do our best to get there to speak to you directly there's information available for you on the internet on BMA communities you can email us and several of my Deputy chairs are now on Twitter so that you can get further information there of course you'd expect me to say this do join the BMA otherwise you won't be able to vote in the ballot thank you very much for listening to me I know that much of this may come as quite a shock to you big things are happening so please do get involved and do pay attention to further information as it comes out thank you very much