Joint Statement – Boots UK and PDA Union Joint Consultative Committee
On Tuesday 26 April 2022, Boots UK and the Pharmacists’ Defence Association Union (PDA Union) held their first face-to-face Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic began. It was felt by both the PDA Union and Boots that it was a very positive, collaborative, constructive, and successful meeting.
This marks the ninth of our regular consultation meetings relating to the agreed items as defined within the recognition agreement, a copy of which can be found here. The JCC meets once a quarter.
The meeting was chaired by Anne Higgins, Director of Stores Pharmacy, and was attended by the Regional and Divisional PDA Union Representatives along with Mark Pitt, Director of Defence Services, and Paul Day, Director, PDA in attendance.
Both Paul Day and Anne Higgins provided a business update respectively and it had been noted how positive, honest, and more open both parties were working together in partnership. Both the regional and divisional representatives were in attendance in person and worked closely before the meeting with the company’s Subject matter experts (SMEs) on each topic sharing feedback, information, and providing solutions to areas of focus. The agenda included two standard items for discussion; health and safety and company-based training.
Presentations were delivered by:
- Rich Evans, Pharmacist & Regional Representative, Ray Humphrey, Senior Safety Manager, and Leeann Morgan, Safety Partner for Stores and optics provided insights into the monthly H&S meetings between Boots & the PDA Union, Pharmacy accident performance, incidents of note, accident investigations, needlestick injuries, inspections of the workplace by local authorities and MyHub safety inspections.
- Paul Day, Director, PDA shared the results and responses from the PDA Union H&S survey, the summary of Boots results of the Annual Safer Pharmacies Survey 2021, and the PDA Workforce survey results 2022. Paul defined the HSE Management standards framework and the PDA Safer Pharmacies Charter describing feedback from a selection of Pharmacists and facilitated a breakout session of what the company could do to improve the comments and results highlighted from the surveys.
- Richard Dunne, Senior Manager, Pharmacy Learning and Development (L&D), Nav Bhogal, Pharmacist & Divisional Representative, and Mithul Shah, Pharmacist & Regional Representative presented a joint update in regard to the L&D initiatives and Richard shared the insights into the new Independent Prescriber (IP) fund.
- Fiona Vernon, Senior Manager Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion provided insights into the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) strategy overview. Daniela Rusalim, Pharmacist & Regional Representative shared what the company and the PDA Union were advocating in regard to the new Menopause leaflet that had been issued, and Jayesh Ladva, Pharmacist & Regional Representative discussed the Celebration of the recent Diwali festival and the promotion of the Boots Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) payment.
All the PDA Union Representatives had chance to contribute in person and feedback throughout the meeting by raising questions with the presenters. A feedback session will be completed to further improve joint ways of working for the next JCC meeting. Solutions have been captured and highlighted to the company so that both parties can continue to work in partnership. Anne Higgins shared that the next JCC meeting scheduled to take place on 27 July 2022 will be in person and looked forward to seeing everyone again.
An overview of the minutes are available here. We will provide regular updates on the progress of actions. For previous meeting minutes click here or for updates on actions to date click here.
Kind regards,
Anne Higgins, Director of Stores Pharmacy– Boots UK
Paul Day, Director, PDA
NB: The links within the statement above are deliberately inactive. Boots pharmacists can access the links and documents referred to above, via the internal Boots live platform where this statement is also published.
Download the statement here:
Learn more
- Joint statement – Boots & the PDA Union (1 July 2021)
- Joint statement – Boots & the PDA Union (18 January 2021)
- Joint statement – Boots & the PDA Union (30 December 2020)
- Joint statement – Boots & the PDA Union (20 October 2020)
- Joint statement – Boots & the PDA Union (24 September 2020)
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