Job profiles for NHS health informatics staff, drawn up to meet the requirements of the national Agenda for Change pay structure, have been published for consultation this week. The staff organisations that co-operated on the profiles say they believe the new structure represents health informatics roles fairly, but they add that there will be jobs for which the pay will not be enough to recruit and retain staff. In these cases they make provision for a premium of up to 30% to be awarded. “We… believe that the profiles now fairly measure and equate the value of health informatics qualifications and the equivalent level of experience. We believe we have a set of consistent profiles for the majority of roles within the health informatics job family. This will help health informatics staff to see career pathways more clearly," says the announcement issued jointly by the Association of ICT Professionals in Health and Social Care (ASSIST), the institute of Health Record and Information Management (IHRIM) and the Library and Knowledge Development Network (LKDN). The three organisations worked closely on a steering group with the Department of Health and the two main health unions Amicus and Unison to produce the job profiles. Both unions balloted members on the changes and their members accepted recommendations to approve Agenda for Change, a new pay and career structure covering all NHS staff except doctors and dentists. Andrew Haw, national chair of ASSIST, who was a steering group member said: "Practitioners in health informatics have expressed concerns that insufficient work had been done to allay fears about the introduction of Agenda for Change in our profession. I am very pleased that the Department of Health wanted to engage with ASSIST and the other professional bodies that represent librarians and health records staff. “We would not claim that the draft profiles are perfect – indeed that is why there is a formal consultation process – but they do represent a large proportion of health informatics jobs. I am very grateful for the tireless work of a handful of practitioners who have developed the profiles to this point where we can invite widespread comments." He added: “ASSIST members – and indeed any individual working in health informatics for the NHS in any of the four home countries – will shortly have an opportunity to be consulted about this important work." The consultation on IM&T job profiles continues until 17 December. The consultation documents can be found in E-Health Insider’s document library. It includes a form for feeding back comments.
