Furloughing staff, government relief schemes, NHS England funding and overcoming stress were all on the agenda during Hakim Group’s second webinar on Thursday (March 26).
Introducing the session, Imran Hakim, CEO of Hakim Group, said: ‘Our speakers’ insight should hopefully help you focus your strategy and the way you are thinking about the challenges we are currently facing.’
Trishna Modessa-Parekh, employment advisor to Hakim Group, then highlighted updates in employment law and furlough.
Speaking during the webinar, Modessa-Parekh said: ‘The topic on everyone’s mind at the moment is furlough and the government’s job retention scheme. While the measures, on the face of it, might seem generous and great the guidance we’ve had so far has unfortunately not been as great.’
Marc Bennett, managing director at AEL Markhams Ltd discussed the business and government relief schemes that have been made available during the pandemic.
‘This is new for all of us,’ he shared, adding: ‘We’re in a financial battle that none of us have experienced before. What I am going to do tonight is provide some practical steps to unlock the various government reliefs that are around.’
Richard Whittington, CEO at the Local Optical Committee Support Unit (Locsu), discussed developments from NHS England and funding.
Highlighting practitioners’ frustrations, Whittington said: ‘Me and my colleagues in the sector bodies completely understand the stress and anger there is in the sector about the delays in getting anything out of NHS England.’
He shared that Locsu is having discussions on daily basis with NHS England about GOS and added that as soon as soon as a decision has been made, Locsu will communicate it.
Whittington noted that NHS England has recognised that there is a potential furlough issue around staff requirements if they need to be called back to provide services. He also updated webinar viewers on personal protective equipment (PPE) and said that he had communicated the importance of PPE in eye care during the pandemic to NHS England while acknowledging that there is a finite amount of PPE and other areas of healthcare are being prioritised.
Andrew Clarke, owner at Practice Building, then talked through how to handle testing situations regarding stress and overcoming difficult challenges to help practitioners through Covid-19.