Northern Health's move to a new approach to primary health care services has received some pushback from the union representing staff about what it will mean for jobs.
Before any changes can be implemented, the Labour Relations Code says an employer has to give 60 days notice.
While the union contended it hasn't been handed adequate information - and therefore no notice has been given - in a decision dated April 19, the Labour Relations Board disagreed.
The LRB dismissed an application against Northern Health, which argued its February email to the union served as notice and gave all the information it had at the moment.
"There is no or incomplete information about changes to job duties, reporting structures, physical locations or other factors that could trigger a change in the positions subsector" argued The Hospital Employees' Union (HEU), which said it was trying to find out if there was "genuine basis" for moving workers from one bargaining unit to another.
Those impacted work mostly in "non-acute" areas like public health, home and community care, and mental health.
"To facilitate this approach a number of health services and support positions will be removed from acute services and will now be providing community-based services," Northern Health said in a March 2013 notice.
But the LRB chair said Northern Health isn't obligated to provide the "formalized or technical" details the union asked for, "particularly in the scenario in this case where details or particulars are perhaps not known."
The Integrated Health Service plan was described by Northern Health as a new way to deliver coordinated health care services in frontline primary care centres. It first signaled the shift to the union in March 2013 and since then the union said "communicated in only very general terms about its IHS plans."
In that first notice, Northern Health called the approach a "key strategic priority" and one that would be rolled out community by community over several years, but first in Prince George, Fraser Lake and Fort. St. John.
"This new model, with the patient at the centre, is being designed to increase the quality of care and ultimately result in better health outcomes," said a letter to the union. "This won't be a 'one-size-fits-all' solution - it will probably look slightly different in each community."
Since that first notice, its website has added three more communities - Prince Rupert, Valemount and Mackenzie - where it is integrating services around the primary care home.
The health authority acknowledged the new approach means change, but said it will operate within existing budgets.
The model is "not intended to incorporate or be driven by cost savings," Northern Health said, so it should affect those in full-time positions.
But the union says it still has no sense of a timeline.
"The most detailed information it has provided is a set of incomplete spreadsheets that communicate its decision to move union members' jobs to different collective agreement with representation by a different union," the decision noted.
At a February meeting, the union asked if affected employees would be laid off or transferred and if new positions would be posted internally or externally. Northern Health said it didn't have that information.
Northern Health argued the two are already in the midst of the consultation process.
