NHS/Term-time contract

[JokerOfTwo]

Hello,

Has anyone successfully been given a term time only contract from the NHS?

Background: currently on my 2nd Maternity leave, will return in October (officially ends 3rd week of August but using leave to extend) I work in a specialist role as a band 6 - the team is made up of 6’s/7’s/8’s. I currently work full time (37.5) but would like to drop to 31.5 (this isn’t a problem) it’s a Monday - Friday job.

My eldest DC will start school in September, and my leave will just not cover the school holidays, my husband works for the police (he’s not a police officer) but due to strict operational requirements, chronic staffing shortages, him having “on call” shifts and high demand during peak times leave requests can easily/often be declined.

My mum works full time (lives 3+ hours an away) and In-laws have made it politely clear they don’t not want to be child care for several weeks a year.

I’ve looked at/asked about holiday camps for the top 3 schools I’ve applied & they all just seem a bit flimsy, they start at 9am finish at 3, only run Mon - Thurs, not available every break & the waiting lists are long, this just seems like a disaster waiting to happen to rely on these when I just don’t have the back up if it falls through.

On top of this even though I’ll have to take this time off work my youngest will be in private nursery (contracted to 51 weeks a year) so I’ll be paying for him to attend even when he doesn’t need to (because I’ll be off work) whereas if I put him the school nursery he’ll have the same time off as eldest & it’ll save me £400 a month, this is my average bill currently with a child in nursery even with “30 hours free”

Please note I’ve not spoken to my ward manager/matron about this, so really looking for advice on approaching the situation.

And as tempting as it is to say things like “work it out between you and other mums” or “I made it work back in the day” I’m really just wanting advice on if people have been granted it & what were the circumstances.

Not everybody has the same support systems or local/community support in place as others.

Hi OP, I’m an AHP not nursing but I have worked in acute/ community/ physical/ mental health trusts in a number of areas of the country and wanted to suggest the option of asking about a possible job share….I have never had colleagues doing TTO but have seen the occasional job share which works extremely well considering all the other obligations of being a working parent! I think if you are in a niche role that is hard to recruit, this can be a way of the service not losing an experienced clinician. I have also worked annualised hours myself for a charity role but likewise I am in a niche specialism and have never struggled to find work .

That's why I asked the same but she didn't say

Yes they do, 2 in fact… it’s not cheaper than my private nursery, however I have not looked into whether it provides a holiday club, so I’ll definitely do that that, thank you.

Sorry I must have missed your reply, my Trust has 2 private nurseries attached, it’s not cheaper than my current one, the day rate is cheaper but they add a consumeable fee and a fee for late pickups (after 5pm)
But I will look into to whether it provides holiday clubs for over 4’s.

I’d be very surprised because people use the service year round plus other staff will want leave in the school holidays too, it’s not fair if one person gets priority. Childminders, holiday clubs etc are what you need, some nhs facilities have them and all local staff can use, or we had a public sector workers one. And yes it swallows up all your money. We did a mix of annual leave, starting really early then the other one going in later, my mum took a week off work each year, holiday clubs and swopping with friends (I’d have 6 kids at mine then all 6 at family 2 then all 6 at family 3 so we could use less childcare

Hi, thanks for the reply, I don’t think a job share is required my role isn’t covered when I’m on leave, I’m currently on Mat leave and no one has been seconded into my role nor have other team members picked up my “slack” I worked my patient list down before I started Mat leave, as I do when I go on annual leave, as everyone does in the team.

We have a referral cap, so when that’s reached referrals are closed, this happens once or twice a year max for a week or so then it re-opens.

I do know someone in the NHS who got term time working - she was a play therapist so her work was important but not urgent. If your role is something like that, annualised hours might work, as PP have said.

Your unpaid parental leave can be deferred btw

I’m sorry but you’ve missed everything I’ve said 😆

I can easily take the school holidays off as leave, we don’t work our rota based on minimum staffing numbers, I just don’t have enough leave to cover 13 weeks.

My mum or in-laws are not an option.

My closest friends all work full time, either don’t have children, their children are older (don’t need looking after) or are in different school catchment areas

Holiday clubs/childminders are sparse in my area & frankly the hours they cover aren’t fit for purpose.

I understand the desire to comment about how you managed it, but not everyone has the same family support, school provisions or flexibility to work around a summer camp that opens at 9:00 and closes at 15:30 and I mentioned this in my original post

I think as you are not covered during maternity leave then you have a far better case to argue then many clinicians would . I wasn’t covered during holiday / sick leave during my annualised hours job but as a solo practitioner this meant that my patients did really lose out on care when I was off so I couldn’t have contemplated asking for ( or been given) a term time only post….but if in your service you can demonstrate ways of working that don’t mean your patients lose out, (or the service suffers in other ways) then its def worth discussing with your manager.

Not me, but I have a friend who is a GP on a TTO contract which she says is like gold dust. Good luck.

You say you have asked about holiday camps at the schools you’ve applied to but you may need to widen your search. My primary aged kids have attended several local holiday clubs but none of them have been at the school they are currently at.

Ex NHS HR here. They absolutely can dictate when you take the parental leave.

OP may end up with it only being available during term time.

Given the extremes of your circumstances, OP, and the non-temporary nature of them, I’m amazed that you thought a second child was going to be easy to work around. (These are also all your choices creating this situation, and it isn’t your employer or patients’ responsibility to resolve it for you. You need a plan B where you sacrifice something that doesn’t impact other people.)

GPs are in different contracts to NHS medics and nurses are in different terms and conditions again……..

I’m sure they are, I’m still answering OP’s question.

The new law hasn’t come in yet (and it still only gives the right for requests to be considered, not granted).

You are requesting to triple (roughly) the amount of paid holiday you take and fix your time off permanently and reduce the number of days you work when you do grace them with your presence. What’s in it for them, exactly?!

You’re extremely flippant about the impact on patients, who will absolutely be impacted by you being available for maybe 60% of the time you are now……….

And that’s not accounting for the time off you will undoubtably needs when your kids are ill or there are inset days or you are ill or your boiler breaks or your car breaks down etc.

It would take me about 10 mins to have a legally compliant refusal to that drafted.

But it’s as useful as talking about cleaners or catering staff or car park attendants…….

The only people I've ever known to be granted this are school nurses / immunisation nurse roles

But these are school hours so the same as when your child is at school .

I worked for a very large Community Trust for many years and they had problems with recruitment and retention. They had to bring about a far more flexible approach to Nurses contracts. Some did compressed days, some weekends / weekdays only yes some term time only. I have also known of Health Visitors be granted it. I now work for a different trust and it would not be considered here - you can only ask right.

During term, though, there are often clubs on site - OP mentions the breakfast club at her third choice school opening at 0815

You can request this but I’d be amazed if it’s granted. As a manager I’d not only be considering your current but future team arrangements. Covering all this holiday is going to be impossible in a small, clinical team. You are probably also not going to be granted all the school holidays with a parental leave request, but you might get more of what you want as it’s not a permanent change. You should really have considered all this before having children.

Hi thanks for your reply.

I knew you weren’t considering the law with your initial immediate refusal response, glad you checked yourself on that

“You are requesting to triple (roughly) the amount of paid holiday you take” No I’m not, TTO contracts do not pay you above your additional entitled leave, 6 paid & 7 unpaid.

“and fix your time off permanently” Yes that’s the whole point of TTO, lots of people have fixed days in the NHS & if my requesting fixed leave doesn’t effect colleagues, patients or overall service, what’s the issue?

“and reduce the number of days you work when you do grace them with your presence” My team like me, that may be difficult concept for you, but other than myself and 2 other nurses none are full time, I’ve reduced my hours in the past, then returned to full time - never been an issue. And as I’ve written in replies happy to do FT

“What’s in it for them, exactly?” they get to keep a nurse specialist, who’s great at their job, is well liked by staff and patients, has never had any complaints by staff or patients, never been on attendance monitoring, mentors/preceptors students and staff, someone who pushes for the service to move forward and likes their job.

“You’re extremely flippant about the impact on patients” You seeing flippancy when I discuss my impact on service provision, you’re mistaken, I fully understand the impact my request would have on patients/provisions/referrals - I know my job well, I know how the service works, I know the processes and share holders involved, therefore I know my request wouldn’t impact these.

”And that’s not accounting for the time off you will undoubtably needs when your kids are ill or there are inset days or you are ill or your boiler breaks or your car breaks down etc” Do these occurrences not happen to staff all the time, they’re not everyday happenings for most people, there’s unpaid leave, swift shopping, emergency carers leave etc.

Could I also give you some advice, staff resentment isn’t built around nurses who are clinically knowledgeable team players wanting set shifts/leave, resentment builds towards nursing staff who are shit at their jobs, take the piss with sickness, refuse to mentor students, are mean to resident Drs and AHP…. Aka the staff who HR never have the balls to draft a legally sound letter firing them.

Hi, I don’t want to keep regurgitating what I’ve already written, but if you read my previous replies, how we organise our service provision allows for multiple nursing staff to be off at once (if that’s requested) we regularly have multiple nurses off over the Christmas period or Easter, we are autonomous with our workloads, we in affect run our loads down before leave, we have a service were referrals are capped, it’s ebbs and flows throughout the year, we are not beholden to any proformas, “2 week wait” referral systems etc.

I’ll have a good chat with my womb when I next get the insatiable urge to populate the earth “no we must not bring wanted children into a stable happy home, the NHS would never survive” 😆

To be honest I’ve never heard of a specialist nurse job that is possible to function in term time only. Every job I’ve heard of (I’m the large teaching hospitals I’ve worked in) is understaffed. I presume you’re hospital based?

Thank you for your reply, I’m amazed how many people do not know of staff being given contract to help manage child care, I’ve worked with lots of staff who’ve also had the type of hours/contracts you mention. I appreciate TTO is a rarity but it’s not something that never occurs.