A round up of the latest HR and Employment Law updates.

NEW NURSING MODEL BETTER FOR GPs?

Community nursing leaders in Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS are working with local authorities and communities with a view to adopting the Buurtzorg Nederland (home care provider) model in the UK as part of the “redesign” of local community health and social care.

According to a study by the Royal College of Nursing, the model (from the Netherlands and created by former Nurse Jos de Blok) gives “district nurses far greater control over patient care” and is credited with both improving the quality of care and being very cost effective.

The model starts with a holistic assessment of needs (including medical conditions and personal/social care needs) from which a care plan is drafted which will examine a network of ways to involve carers to support care within the patient/client’s social environment, promoting self-care and independence.

The Royal College of Nursing study also finds that model means that “district nurses tend to be well known in the small neighbourhood/community they work in” which helps build “good working relationships and strong dialogue with GPs” and other care providers.

NICE END OF LIFE CARE GUIDANCE

The Royal College of GPs has responded to the draft NICE End of Life Care guidance (published for consultation on 29^th July 2015) with Clinical Lead for End of Life Dr Catherine Millington-Sanders saying that “this guidance highlights how important it is for people to be involved in having discussions about their care”.

The response continues that the “clear difference between this and the Liverpool Care Pathway is that this is not a ‘pathway’ or process to be followed” and instead “provides guidance on what good practice looks like and gives practical advice on issues that need to be considered when caring for a person in their last days of life”.

REVIEWING “EMPLOYMENT” STATUS

The law relating to employment status is under scrutiny again in a case involving Uber who provide online taxi booking services. Despite Uber viewing the drivers used as “partners” the GMB union are challenging this saying Uber has breached its “duty to provide drivers with basic rights on pay, holiday, health and safety and discipline and grievances”.

From cleaning to professional services, practices need to review any work/services which are provided to them and take advice where someone who is apparently self-employed but may be under a personal legal obligation to directly provide that work, or where the practice is their main or sole client. This is because the practice may inadvertently become liable to comply with obligations as an employer (such as paid holidays).

HOLIDAY PAY WHILE OFF SICK

Following the Employment Appeal Tribunal decision in Plumb v Duncan Print Group Ltd, if a worker is absent because of long-term sickness and chooses not to take their holiday entitlement they can carry forward four weeks’ leave as required under the EU Working Time Directive –  (this case did not deal with the 1.6 weeks’ additional leave under Regulation 13A of the Working Time Regulations which the EAT had have previously held is not eligible to be carried forward) but it must be taken within 18 months of the end of the year in which it was accrued.