IRHC External Advisory Group Meeting Wed 12th October 2011

A meeting took place of the External Advisory Committee of the Institute of Remote HealthCare at the Council Chamber of the Medio – Churgical Society, Forresterhill, Aberdeen, on the 12^th Oct 2011.

Chairman :

Sean McGowan Transocean North Sea

Members Present :

Mark Fleetwood FrontierMedex, Ross Haworth Abermed, Dr Alison Carrol Abermed, Kevin Avengelista Capita Energy, Simon Harvey Transocean, Dr Graham Furness UK Oil and Gas.

IRHC Council Representatives:

Dr Mark Cheesman , Prof Graham Page, Alan Kennedy-Bolam

During the meeting several discussions points were forwarded to the Chairman, which require the IRHC Council to resolve.

Actions to be taken by the Council:

1.  It was noted that the Council should be more transparent and that information should be shared to all members through different media.  When using the Website for communication, it was felt developments should not be exclusive to the “Members area” as this may detract potential members from taking up IRHC membership.

 

2. The attendees at the meeting felt there was a need to update the IRHC Council agenda and to communicate and review the IRHC work stream plans at each advisory meeting.

 

3. With recent developments in confirming the different methods of registration, the committee felt the best route and opportunity for registration exists with the CHRE (Council for Healthcare Regulatory Body) and the IEAG wish the IRHC Council to investigate this further.

 

4. The frequency of the IEAG was discussed and it was generally felt that six month meetings were not frequent enough and there was a consensus the meetings should be increased to quarterly.

 

5. There is a separate working group discussing “Medics Competency”.  Some of the IEAG members have attended this meeting and many of the points raised were similar to IRHC deliberations.  At present the “Medics Competency” Working group has written to the HSE expressing concerns with the current structure of HSE Guidance and asked for a method of registering medics with a governing organisation.  Sean McGowan will be meeting with Dr Ashan Saleem (HSE Inspector) next week and will take the opportunity to request a joint meeting between the HSE, The Competency Group and the IRHC.

 

6. The attendees spoke about the IEAG and it was commonly agreed that we should try to ensure we have a good representation of individuals at each meeting from the following groups: Medics, O&G Operators, Drilling Contractors, Service Providers, Training Organisations, Industry bodies and IRHC Individual Members.  This can be achieved by forward planning, good communications and publicity.

 

7. The last action point was to promote the IRHC as much as possible.  We will shortly be in a position to give short presentations on both Capita and Abermed Rig Medic Courses.  In addition it was also discussed that we should allow the Journal of the IRHC to be placed in accredited training venues.  We also discussed funding may be an issue that we need to address.