Anyone in NHS HR or recruitment who could advise?

[CarryOnNurse20]

I’ve been offered a band 6 nursing position in the NHS. They have offered Step 1 of the pay scale £32,206.
Could I negotiate a higher salary? My reasons are:

• I’ve been at least a band 6 or equivalent level in HE for the past 6 years which should therefore be step 3 (around £39K)
• I work on the bank doing this new role and get paid £20.67/hour- equivalent to step 3
• my current job has a scale equivalent to the old AfC. When I came to it 3 years ago it was a new speciality so I started at bottom of 6 and am now the equivalent to step 2 £34K ish
• prior to this my previous job was as a Band 7 in the speciality I’m going back into. I moved cities and tried a new area but my background (5 years and lots of training) is the specialism I’m going back into.

I don’t want to make a fool of myself but I don’t want to accept a lower salary when I feel I should ideally be on Step 3. As it’s a specialist area they’ve advertised this role for the second time after having no suitable candidates before.

Should I ask for a higher starting pay? And who do I approach- new manager (band 7 nurse) or recruitment manager?

Thanks!

Recruitment can match your previous experience to the appropriate point on the payscale automatically, you may need to flag it up to them if it looks like they haven't picked it up themselves. You'll need to provide evidence of your previous Band 6 employment through payslips etc. If this doesn't work then contact your hiring manager or the Service/General Manager covering the area you have been recruited into, if it's a hard to recruit to position then I'm sure they will be keen to help sort it out. Good luck and congratulations on the new post!

Thanks so much @ConstantlyIrksome that’s really helpful! Even though I haven’t actually got to that point/step if I show them 6 years of band 6/7 experience in NHS or equivalent that would be enough to convince them? I’ve asked for a letter from the staff bank detailing my hourly pay to submit too .

Yes that should be fine, with 6/7 years experience you should be right at the top of the payscale so as long as you can evidence this they should match it.

Thanks great thanks! :)