Credit: Basil Hayes
ESPC has relaunched its SPC Property Practice certification, a unique accreditation course for solicitor estate agents, after a highly successful first year.
Developed with The Law Society of Scotland and Edinburgh Conveyancers Forum, it’s the UK’s inaugural qualification of this kind for ESPC Chartered member firms.
This year, starting on 24th April, 40 new participants have enrolled, with completion anticipated in December. The course is a proactive measure for ESPC’s members, aligning with potential UK-wide regulation updates.
Ashley McInulty, head of member services at ESPC, reflected on the program’s success and its benefits for consumer standards: “Following on from a truly fantastic first year of the SPC Property Practice qualification, we are incredibly proud to be bringing the course back for a second year for a whole new cohort.”
The curriculum includes subjects like Marketing and Branding, Building Construction, and a new module on Ethics, aiming to elevate the solicitor estate agency’s role in the Scottish property sector. It prepares agents to surpass the service levels of traditional estate agents.
McInulty further emphasised the value of the certification: “It is truly a mark of the commitment that our member firms have to offering the very best service to their customers that so many more have signed up to undertake this certification. At ESPC, we remain dedicated to raising consumer standards in the property industry.”
The NHS in Scotland is spending more than a million pounds a year to employ two locum consultants, an employment tribunal has heard.
The bill of almost £1.2 million is for a pair of senior psychiatrists to cover the Western Isles and is an increase of £100,000 on the previous year, according to figures presented to the hearing.
The Isle of Lewis-based health board told the tribunal it struggles to fill the positions with permanent doctors and that overspending on temporary staff – who are looking to “maximise” their earnings – has an impact on other patients’ care.
An individual locum can cost the health service £600,000 a year compared with £200,000 for a doctor who takes on a permanent role, the hearing was told.
The financial disclosures were made during a case involving consultant psychiatrist Denitza Mihaylova, who was sacked after she fell ill and was unable to fulfil her on-call commitments at night.
Over almost two years, the NHS paid locums to cover her while she was off sick, but sacked her after concluding that funding this arrangement was “no longer viable”.
Health board sued
Ms Mihaylova sued the health board for disability discrimination and unfair dismissal, but her case was rejected after the tribunal found the health board had to manage its budget responsibly.
The hearing in Stornoway was told that Ms Mihaylova started work for the Western Isles NHS in September 2020 as one of two specialists providing 24/7 psychiatric services.
This involved an on-call rota and regular visits to Uist and Barra as well as home visits to patients in crisis on Harris and Lewis.
“The second full-time permanent consultant psychiatrist had retired in 2018,” the tribunal was told. “[The health board] had been unable to recruit a full-time replacement.
“Between 2021 and 2023 the vacant post for a consultant psychiatrist was advertised eight times with no applicants. Accordingly, that post was filled from 2018 with locums.
“Consultant psychiatrists are in short supply in Scotland, there being a 60 per cent vacancy rate at this time. General psychiatry is the specialism with the most vacancies across Scotland.
“It is therefore difficult to recruit consultant psychiatrists particularly for remote, island-based locations. This means that the board must rely on locums.”
Difficulties finding doctors
The tribunal heard that although there are agreements with some agencies to supply locums at a capped cost, because of the difficulties in finding doctors, health boards have to go “off framework” and recruit using other agencies at higher costs.
The tribunal was told that in September 2021 Ms Mihaylova was diagnosed with the spinal condition myelopathy, leading her to be off sick for 150 days over the next 22 months.
To cover her absence, the health board had to pay for an additional locum consultant, the hearing was told.
In March 2022, Ms Mihaylova began a phased return to work following surgery and by August she had returned to full-time duties.
However, she raised concerns about responding to night time calls as the pain medication she had to take – which the tribunal heard she may have to be on permanently – made her “sedated”.
An occupational health adviser recommended she not do overnight on calls, the hearing was told.
No longer viable
In September Ms Mihaylova was told by bosses that funding long-term locum cover for her on-call duties – at a cost of £325,000 – was no longer viable.
She was also told the health board anticipated running a £1.6m budget deficit – with locum costs a “considerable part of that” – despite Scottish Government rules forbidding this.
In addition, bosses said that “the adjustment to cover on-call could not continue for financial reasons without a known time frame when she could safely resume on-call”.
In January 2023 the figure for the cost of the second locum consultant to cover her absence had increased to £366,000 a year, the hearing was told.
In March, Ms Mihaylova – who by that time was on sick leave – was sacked because of her absences from work and the health board being unable to say with certainty that she could ever return to work full time.
As part of the evidence presented to the tribunal, the health board produced figures which showed that the total budget for mental health services for 2022-23 was £2,843,881 and from that for psychiatry the budget was £520,986.
Budget increases
However, locum costs for 2022-23 were actually £1,073,308 for two doctors, including the second locum to cover for Ms Mihaylova.
The tribunal was told that the budget for mental health services for 2023-24 had increased to £4,314,314, with a psychiatry budget of £611,775.
The projected cost of employing two locum consultant psychiatrists employed since her dismissal was put at £1,179,076.
“Overspend in mental health services has consequences for service provision and the financial impact on other aspects of the service, because it requires efficiency savings elsewhere in the organisation,” the tribunal was told.
“The requirement to secure locums, and changing locums, creates significant disruption with direct impact on both inpatient and community care, specifically in terms of continuity of care, functioning of local multidisciplinary team arrangements and decision making in relation to complex patient presentation.”
Despite sympathising with Ms Mihaylova, the tribunal rejected her claims.
‘Extremely unfortunate’
“The circumstances of this case are extremely unfortunate,” said Muriel Robison, an employment judge who chaired the tribunal.
“The [health board] has difficulty recruiting consultant psychiatrists and having recruited [Ms Mihaylova], who clearly enjoyed her job and living on the island, she became ill such that she could not perform all of her duties.
“It must be a matter of great regret to both parties that the arrangement could not continue. For those reasons, this was a difficult case, but ultimately we accepted that the adjustments made could not continue without an end in sight given the respondent’s budgetary responsibilities.”
The extent of the crisis engulfing Scotland’s NHS is being hidden from the public, doctors have warned, as they savaged SNP ministers for failing to set out a plan to save the health service.
Iain Kennedy, the chair of the British Medical Association in Scotland, said that he was now no longer able to advise his patients in what year they would receive specialist appointments and that problems in the NHS meant it was “failing” patients.
He also warned that England had become “considerably more attractive” for senior clinicians than Scotland due to the SNP’s high tax policies and that vacancy levels were likely far higher than official figures suggested.
His intervention, at an event hosted by the Reform Scotland think tank, comes in the wake of a damning Audit Scotland report which found there was no “overall vision” for an NHS which was no longer able to meet demand.
Figures published this week also showed that waiting times in A&E departments were continuing to rise, with almost 9,000 people waiting more than 12 hours to be seen in January.
Meanwhile, activity levels have not returned to pre-pandemic levels, with 55,000 fewer operations carried out over the course of a year, and more people being added to waiting lists than are being seen.
“We do have an absolute crisis and it’s not sustainable,” Dr Kennedy, an Inverness GP, said. “It seems unbelievable that there is no vision, no strategy, no plan for NHS Scotland.
“Even the small building I’m in here, a medical practice for 10,000 patients, has a written-down strategic plan. To think that NHS Scotland has no vision, no plan, seems quite incredible.”
‘True figures hidden’
The senior medic said that figures showing consultant vacancies had risen to 436, a rise of 6 per cent on last year, told only “half the story” due to some posts being hidden in official figures.
He said that the BMA had complained to the information commissioner after the country’s largest health board, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, refused to disclose the true total.
He added that the scale of the problems were being “hidden from the public” with a “culture of cover-up and secrecy” in the health service coinciding with Nicola Sturgeon taking over as First Minister in 2014.
Dr Kennedy said a lack of basic information was being made available to patients about waiting times, and that he had paid for two family members to go private as he was unwilling to see them languish on NHS lists.
“Doctors are voting with their feet and what they are doing is well beyond strike action,” he said. “They are retiring early, they are reducing their hours, they are emigrating.
“Doctors in England earn more, they’ve just been given a pay offer this week. And if you add in the fact that doctors in Scotland are taxed more, it’s considerably more attractive now to be a consultant in England than it is in Scotland.
“Young doctors are making a choice and they just look at the hard facts, the pound signs, they’re going to choose a country that is outwith Scotland.”
Scottish doctors hit by tax hike
The NHS England deal will mean consultants who are a few years into their career will get an extra £3,000 – on top of a six per cent rise for all consultants.
But in Scotland the new tax rate means anyone who earns more than £75,000 will pay 45 per cent rate and those over £125,000 face paying 48 per cent.
Despite the turmoil in the Scottish NHS, it emerged on Wednesday that bosses at struggling NHS boards were being handed “superior” or “outstanding” performance appraisals which are linked to pay rises.
The Scottish Government was approached for comment.
Leading innovation funding consultancy, Innovative Partners, has announced its expansion into Edinburgh with the opening of a new head office on South St Andrews Street in the city centre, moving its main base of operations from Aberdeen.
The expansion will enable Innovative Partners to support its growing innovation advisory and investment client roster in Edinburgh and around Scotland’s central belt. The firm will retain its strong presence in Aberdeen.
Innovative Partners was established in 2019 by entrepreneurs Andrew Marshall and Liam Hurley, who saw the need for an advice-led consultancy for innovative funding solutions following their own business experience. The company aims to make innovative funding solutions for UK businesses simple and stress free while ensuring businesses receive the maximum benefit available to them through grants, investments and tax incentives.
As the business has grown, the boutique firm has developed its offering to not only provide advisory and consultancy services, but also invest in early-stage technology businesses. Among its current portfolio of investments are ValStream, an advanced procurement analytics provider which was named Boeing Supplier of the Year 2023, and Elastik, an education technology company.
“Innovative Partners already enjoys considerable success from our Aberdeen and London offices. Extending into Edinburgh’s entrepreneurial hub will be pivotal to enhancing our support for clients and investees across Scotland,” said Andrew Marshall, co-founder of Innovative Partners and founder of the parent company, Carlowrie Group.
In 2022, commercial director Michael Davie joined Hurley and Marshall as part of the Innovative Partners leadership team. The company has recently hired a business development manager, an operations manager, and a technical consultant to support the move into Edinburgh, with further hires planned later this year.
“The decision to open our new office in Edinburgh reflects our confidence in the robustness of Scotland’s business ecosystem and our dedication to delivering unparalleled support to companies across the region,” Davie commented.
Innovative Partners is a Carlowrie Group company, alongside other renowned businesses and charities, including Edinburgh Street Food, Carlowrie Castle and The Breakfast Bothy. Founded by Andrew Marshall over 20 years ago, Carlowrie Group employs 350 people across the UK and places social projects and giving back at the heart of each business.
To give back to the local community, Innovative Partners supports The Breakfast Bothy, an Edinburgh-based charity helping people experiencing homelessness. On the 19th of April, the Innovative Partners team and some clients will join over 100 others at the charity’s first Sleep Out on the lawns of Carlowrie Castle. Money raised will go towards the expansion of The Breakfast Bothy’s services.