For health reasons I now work from home and have managed to build it up almost to full-time again.
My salary more than halved, and for a couple of years I was totally dependent on benefits. I currently earn £20K a year less than I was earning when I was employed outside the home but I am so much happier and now that the work from home is a lot more settled and I have some steady clients what I can earn is likely to increase. One of the reasons I collapsed was to do with bullying (not in my most recent outside-the-home job, but the one before that. Which was not NHS but an up-its-own-bum Russell Group university with a narcissist for a boss and a vile witch as the next senior manager. There were nice normal people but not in the management for my part of the department. When I left they split my workload between 3 people. It took over 18 months before I felt safe enough to allow it to take its toll). Anyway.
If you're already within the NHS you should move over on the same spine point as long as you haven't had a break in NHS service; sometimes they''ll even offer you the next spine point up (used to happen automatically but not any more). If you're outside the NHS, especially if it's public sector, you might find they take your experience into account. I'd be inclined to negotiate that if and when they offer you the job. When I moved from the MoD to the NHS as my experience was directly relevant and very comparable they put me on the middle of the scale. The manager will usually have some discretion here.
And something else to remember is that the NHS is one of the very few places left where experience and assumed increasing competence in a role is rewarded by an annual pay rise within the scale, which also gets reviewed and usually increased (albeit slightly) each year. So even if you start on the bottom of the scale, or the middle, in a year's time you'll be on the next spine point up. Have a look at www.nhsemployers.org/pay-pensions-and-reward/agenda-for-change/pay-scales/annual - I'm guessing from what you've said it's probably a Band 6 you're applying for so that will give you an idea. (I came into the NHS after my MoD stint on the middle of that scale.)
Why is E&D important? Well, apart from the fact it's now embedded in the legislation, one of the main principles of the NHS is that everyone is treated equally and fairly, as far as possible (or they should be).This doesn't always mean treating people exactly the same, it means treating people fairly.
The NHS is the single biggest employer in the UK (it's the 2nd biggest in the world), and it's relatively representative of wider society so, again, making sure that it continues to represent that society is important; for workforce planning it's also important since despite what the Tories would have us believe, there are not enough UK trained healthcare professionals so the NHS has to recruit in other countries outside the tiny little pool of those who are left; the healthcare professional workforce is also ageing; so that patients will feel welcome E&D are important (since ultimately the role of the NHS is actually patient care). Maybe have a look at www.england.nhs.uk/about/equality/equality-hub/edc/, there are some great buzzwords in there. ;)
The NHS is not perfect, but overall my experience of it (15 years plus, eek!) was that it really does its best to make people feel welcome no matter what their age, background, ethnicity, gender preference, disability or political persuasion. Every now and then you get examples of bullying and they really are the bad eggs.
Your clues to the questions they're likely to ask you at interview are in the person spec and on their website - what sort of questions would they ask to give you the opportunity to show how your skills and experience fit their needs? This is assuming they're using the competency or values based approach and not the ludicrous "what would you do if a spaceship landed in your back garden" and "how many uses can you find for a paperclip" approach that was so popular about 25 years ago. There'll almost certainly be a question about communication skills and there'll almost certainly be a question about conflict resolution.
Most (non-doctor) NHS interviews would take more or less the following format, assuming there isn't a test or task first (if there is, they really should have told you in advance. So for a typist it might be a typing test, or for the records department, data input, for instance.)
- Tell us about yourself. This is where you can sum up your experience and explain why you'd like to work at that organisation/in that role.
- Some questions relating to your experience and how it relates to the role. There are two main methods at present, competency based, in which they like you to give answers based on your own experience and how you personally contributed to situations and solutions, and values-based, in which case they like the examples too but it will also be about how you fit with the values of the organisation. So have a look at the website to see what the values are.
- Maybe a couple of general questions at the end and a chance for you to ask questions. So you could ask, for instance, about mandatory training (trust me, you'll do lots!!), whether it's delivered in face-to-face or online; how they ensure that training complies with E&D (they may well ask you the same question); how often staff have to complete E&D training; if there's a library for staff use (if it's a teaching hospital there should be); maybe even things like what kind of community outreach or charity work they do, that kind of thing. One of my favourites, as it really throws them, as well as making them realise you see them as people and not just scary interviewers, is to ask what is the project they've worked on that they've enjoyed the most. Most NHS interviewers are not out to trip you up, they're there to make sure they're getting the best person for the job.
The very best of luck - fingers crossed for you.