NHS - Shared Parental Leave

[WorldsOnFire]

Shamelessly posting for traffic

I’m currently 29 weeks.

DH works for the NHS and had to send an application to request to apply for SPL (not an actual application) which he’s done weeks ago - no response or written acknowledgment of having received it.

He caught one of the admin team the other day who said ‘oh yes we’re looking into it’ but honestly I don’t trust them at all we’ve had all sorts of issues previously. They harassed DH our entire honeymoon for paperwork he’d sent them 3 times (and they’ve confirmed receipt of in an email). They then denied his leave...after he’d already taken it.

I’m concerned they’ll just push it off and push it off then say they haven't got it/need a mountain of extra paperwork or just refuse it (yes they are allowed to refuse SPL) a couple of weeks before birth and there will be nothing DH and I can do.

They seem impossible to chase/unresponsive and just a bit of a law to themselves.

Anyone have advice/experience?

HR and management in the NHS are a law unto themselves I'm afraid, and really incompetent in my experience! I often wonder how qualified the HR staff that they employ actually are...
I worked with a male nurse who was denied two weeks leave when his wife gave birth by C section! He wasn't even asking for shared parental leave! He handed his notice in and we lost a damn good Nurse.

keep copies of every interaction you have with them over this, document that conversation you had with admin (and name the person). Your Dh may need to go to his union at some point over this and you will need evidence of incompetence and deliberate sabotage of his chances of getting SPL.

Is your DH taking a discontinuous block of leave? As that is the only way they are entitled to deny it if you have provided the notice in time (8 weeks before leave).

No personal experience however can you escalate matters? His manager or someone higher up in HR? If they deny leave then they should do so quickly so that you can submit another request with the required 8 week notice. I would also get him to discuss the leave with his manager and have it informally signed off if possible so HR have no leg to stand on to deny it, as the business excuse is no longer viable.

Does he also have proof of the submitted documents? Such as an email being sent with the scanned copies? If not, I would cover his ass and do that so you have proof the request was submitted in time.

Sorry, no advise but I echo was a PP said, I've worked for several NHS trusts and my god, the HR and payroll teams have (with the exception of a very few of them) been massively incompetent!! I think they receive little training to be honest, and it's incredibly frustrating!

@Alarae

He’s a Dr so doesn’t have a ‘manager’ just senior colleagues and someone who overseas his training programme (and has achieved ‘unicorn’ status to find or pin down 😂)

He’s requested 2 blocks of leave with a few weeks holiday in the middle. (Totalling about 10 weeks) so not huge but not straight forward.
They can actually refuse the whole thing, apparently emergency services/armed forces are allowed to refuse SPL on that basis of maintaining safe staffing levels.

Tbh the whole thing makes me nervous, DH is frequently the only Dr covering intensive care and I asked him the other day ‘So what happens when I go into labour? If you’re on a 13 hour shift?’

He said ‘well they’ll have to get someone to cover so I can leave’ but that will realistically take hours! Unless they have someone on standby but DH doesn’t think they will.

It’s my first pregnancy (you may have seen my post the other day about nobody answering the labour triage phone for hours when I was leaking fluid and cramping) so I’m starting to get really upset and scared that I’ll basically be left on my own.

Husband needs to contact BMA. They have recently negotiated more protection for trainees on this and it’s a hot topic. Call both the first point of contact and the local rep. Also get him to contact the champion for flexible working at his trust, it’s not quite their remit but there is a lot of traction to make SPL work (doi junior doctor married to a junior doctor - I had my date for starting my Mat leave “denied” by my trust as they didn’t have cover, had to ask them what the hell they wanted me to do - come in and give birth on shift perhaps?, they seemed to think it was something I could control lol)

Husband will have a dedicated hr advisor or business partner, as well as a business manager.
He will know the names (or where to find them on the intranet) and should email them to ask for an update rather than waiting around.

In defence of NHS HR teams (I work for one but only relatively recently) medical staff tend to be dealt with by their own team. Their managers usually don’t understand policies and the team themselves won’t be HR generalists. They probably see SPrL very rarely and it can be hard to understand.

Husband will have a dedicated hr advisor or business partner, as well as a business manager.
He will know the names (or where to find them on the intranet) and should email them to ask for an update rather than waiting around.

Depends entirely on the Trust. Ours doesn’t work like that for medics.

You are not asking HR for permission. You are informing them of the leave so they can sort out payroll etc. They can’t deny it

I don’t have any advice but hope you get it sorted. I had to do all my own payroll calculations for my own SPP because HR were so awful. It got finalised the day before my leave started.

Have you considered a birth doula? My husband is in the military and I was worried about being on my own so we got a doula. £500, she was amazing. (My husband did make it home on time)

My DH had this issue. In the end he found out who was looking after it in Payroll rather than HR which sorted it in the end.

As above, they said it was taking a while to come back to him as they had only had a couple of requests ever in his trust and none as long as his (fully taking over leave from me for 9 months).

He did as PP advised and had his line manager confirm in email that he could have the leave. I understand this might be hard for your DH.

Also again email a copy of it so you have a paper trail. In the paperwork I believe they have to reply to you within a certain number of weeks, if they don't it's automatically approved (based on the paperwork I've read, not sure if this is the same for all trusts).

My DH has to chase a lot

I have two experiences of organising SPL.

One in a small company, I was the first person to take it and they sorted it all out almost immediately.

One in a large company. I told them months ago and am still waiting for them to set up ‘appropriate documentation and procedures’ to submit mine and my OH’s leave dates. Again I’m the first to do it.

Re-read your OP

DH works for the NHS and had to send an application to request to apply for SPL (not an actual application) which he’s done weeks ago - no response or written acknowledgment of having received it.

He hasn’t actually applied yet? The form must be on their intranet.

@NeedAnExpert

He read the procedure on the intranet and filled out the form provided but it clearly stated that it was a request to apply for SPL and not the actual application itself. Apparently he has to have approval to apply before they’ll give him the proper forms.

Seems insane to me but I work for a fantastic multi nat who are nothing like the NHS 😂

There must be a service manager over intensive care. I would just keep bugging them. By email and every time he sees them, which if the same as my service manager, won’t be very often.

Have you read the NHS national policy. It was updated in April last year.