to think NHS Staff have got amazing terms and conditions?

[backoffice]

I've left the NHS to go back to the private sector after 15 years. I've been reflecting a lot on my time in the NHS and something in particular that has struck me time and again are the great terms and conditions that really get people stuck in the service, so they can't leave.

In my organisation over 1/3 of staff were Band 7 or above (40-45k). Many had been in the service for many years. Statistically almost half of NHS staff are earning over 31k (band 6 or above).

The pension accrual at this level is the equivalent of an additional £15-20k contributions on top of the salary if you were buying on the open market (I'm assuming around 1k p.a. for a Band 7 into the defined benefits scheme). So that's around 1/2 NHS staff with a package of around 50k.

These benefits are really significant - especially outside of London or other cities. And staff who perform very poorly cannot really be removed from the service - the unions are very strong and the processes are huge. I managed out one person but it ended up with a criminal case - i.e. the person committed a crime and I was still struggling to get rid of them.

I needed to leave the NHS for my mental health - the whole service is so traumatised - but the financial benefits of working there far, far outweigh anything in the private sector. Most staff are, I think, basically trapped. AIBU?

@Gingernaut

Like *@DobbyIsAFreeElf*, I have a hard time understanding the discrepancies between the different jobs, even at the same level.

Band 2 cleaners are on the same band as me - while I work in a clean environment, in layers of protective clothing, sterilizing and cleaning pharmaceutical production rooms, setting up the next day's production lines, they're in polo shirts, doing regular cleaning.

HCAs have tough routines and are paid the same as the cleaners and catering staff

Ward clerks are also Band 2, but do so much more than the average admin assistant.

Health records clerks are no in charge of clinics, instead of just collecting, replacing and picking files for clinics and wards.

The unfairness of some of the pay bands creates resentment.

I'd agree with this. The supposedly 'fair' national bandings are anything but.

A band 5 staff nurse does so much more, and has more responsibility, than a band 5 administrative officer. Their banding will never be reevaluated upwards though, because there are too many of them and the national cost would be huge.

Same for ward clerks etc.

While in NHS England there are people on band 6 and 7 doing basic transactional admin task, with very little responsibility at all.

Every disciplinary by management I've seen fail is because they, the management fucked it up. Every time.

The “management” frequently fuck this kind of thing up because they are actually clinical or technical experts with precious little management training and no time. The support from HR is generally woeful, largely because the HR departments have been stripped out in the interests of “efficiency” because apparently having an effective back room function is a luxury and a waste of public money.

@Blossomtoes
Are you a Dr? You do actually sound very bitter.

This was your post

Exactly this. Consultants are on well in excess of £100k, they bump the average up massively.

Perhaps if you said some consultants that would have been better. I agree with your overall point that NHS consultants who are generally higher earners will increase the average.

Disclaimer
I’m not a Dr by the way

What rubbish!

I’m a band 6, 20 years I’ve been doing this. I never get a break so NHS gets minimum of 4 hours unpaid overtime from me each week, I am on a ward with currently only 2 nurses in total and a manager so regularly manage 18 patients on my own. It’s hell and if I could leave nursing tomorrow I would.

I do get paid reasonably well but all the responsibility falls to me as well and it’s tough, blame culture is ever present in the NHS and in mental health, we work with very high risk.

Of course YABU

You need to leave for mental health problems caused by your work which suggests the overall conditions are anything but good

I'm a Band 5 PA & yes the terms are very good. But the horrendous amount of middle managers on Band 6, 7 & 8 doing 'made up' jobs & riding the gravy train is sickening. I've seen first hand how enormous sums are thrown at 'advisors' & the like, it's heartbreaking to witness this when I firmly believe we lack medical staff & health care assistants (who are all underpaid).
I work hard for my salary & would struggle to find such benefits anywhere else, but bullying is also rife so there's a lot of dissatisfaction in the job.

I left the NHS very quickly, band 3 admin.
Ridiculously high workload and nasty bullies made me very unwell.
A few extra days annual leave and the occasional shop discount weren't worth destroying my mental health for.

[quote BridesmaidHelp]@Blossomtoes
Are you a Dr? You do actually sound very bitter.

This was your post

Exactly this. Consultants are on well in excess of £100k, they bump the average up massively.

Perhaps if you said some consultants that would have been better. I agree with your overall point that NHS consultants who are generally higher earners will increase the average.[/quote]
I’m not bitter in the least and have absolutely no idea why you’d infer that. I didn’t say all consultants. What I said was factually accurate. It’s really not my fault if you’re unable to understand what’s written.

No blossom you are incorrect!
Sad life to spend all day trolling MN and rushing to reply to any post that involves you!
LOL

I’m correct.

Friend just left 1st nhs clinical job because of bullying...now going private. I'm just starting out after being bullied on 2 of 3 clinical placements...hoping i last!

Not all NHS nurses are on the AFC payscale or have the benefits of the terms and conditions, annual leave, sick pay etc you state.
I'm employed by GP's who set their own. There are thousands like me.

I kept the pension though. It's the only reason I'm still working as can go at 55 without penalty due to special class status. Maybe then all those Christmas days on my knees on urine soaked carpets washing ulcerated legs whilst my young DC were at home will be worth it.

Band 2 and 3 salaries are ridiculous compared to the amount of skill and knowledge people need to be a HCA or OT/Physio assistant! Not to mention the responsibility.

And staff who perform very poorly cannot really be removed from the service - the unions are very strong and the processes are huge

Not true everywhere. I’ve seen people swiftly put through the disciplinary process or capability (even on long term sick) then dismissed. They can appeal but rarely do. But then our trust has watertight policies for things like disciplinary, unauthorised lateness, excess sick leave etc. If sick long term they can claim you’re unable to do your job safely and offer redeployment, but that could be anywhere and isn’t pay protected; but if you decline they terminate your contract.

I’ve seen so many excellent staff leave due to rigid policies and procedures like this.

I think that the overall package from the NHS is genuinely quite good but the problem as others have pointed out is the inconsistencies in AfC pay bands. The disparity between the responsibility of a Band 2/3 HCA or OT assistant is phenomenally different to admin on that (although they still have to work very hard!). I've name changed for this, but I have worked as an assistant psychologist in NHS Services and whilst I Ioved it, a Band 4 for a job that expected me to have a degree, postgraduate degree and a lot of experience and responsibility felt undervalued.

The disparity between the responsibility of a Band 2/3 HCA or OT assistant is phenomenally different to admin on that (although they still have to work very hard!)

It tends to be the band 2/3 HCAs, PT and OT assistants who deal with the brunt of violence on MH wards, or de-escalate situations.

And for OT assistants they’re often running activity groups single handed and back to back, or taking patients outdoors (another big responsibility and risk) and that’s on top of assisting the OTs. From my experience in MH HCAs often get bodily fluids thrown or spat at them, have to help patients wash in the shower, dress, empty commodes, sit and chat to listen to their worries, plus keep up with their checks. If they get a check wrong (say the patient appears asleep, HCA doesn’t want to wake them so shines a torch from the door, then later it’s discovered patient tragically ligatured but hid it with the bedcovers. The HCA will be hauled up before coroners court and most likely be dismissed).

Same with community MH; if that HCA is the last person to see a patient alive they will have fo explain themselves. Eg patient may have seemed settled and content on their visit, but later taken a lethal overdose.

@StrangeToSee I know it frustrates and baffles me that individuals who are getting paid 2x as much are often not in the way of physical violence or managing complex risk in the same way.

Most people you worked with were above band 6, and the work wasn’t very stressful (only when you had to do your manager duties and sack someone)... It sounds like you are non clinical. In fairness, I think there should be a different pay scale for clinical and non clinical staff. Non- clinical non patient facing usually work at higher bands, can have flexiwork, work from home some days. Another poster saying that 27 days + 8 bank holidays is nearly 7 weeks of holidays a year also show how little they know about clinical work. We cannot take holidays when we want, we work on weekends and bank holidays. Which means, I may take a week off but my manager needs me to work on the weekend there for I only get 7 days off, whereas if you were an office worker you would get 10 days off in total. I could only take 2 days off this Christmas, which didn’t suit me at all. But I have 15 a/l days left, so I am told I will have to spend them in January or February, when it suits the service, not me.
In a normal ward or community team you have a band 7, a few 6s and a lot of 5,3,2. Same applies for allied health professionals. We are accountable for a lot, if you have ever dealt with physical/emotional abuse, a complaint or had to give evidence in court (even if it’s not your fault, the lawyers there do not feel pity that you are just a band 5 who saw the patient just for one session of physio, they will rip apart your notes!).
Somebody said that the issue won’t be fixed by throwing more money to us clinical staff but ibbwg to differ. Maybe me and my colleagues are selfish but I know of many excellent nurses who have recently left my trust to retrain in higher paid roles (IT mostly) or left to other countries were their knowledge if appreciated. Having worked in Australia in the past I can tell you that, no matter the stress, when I saw a lovely pay check, I felt more motivated to do more, I wanted more challenge and I felt everything was worth it. I’m back in U.K. for family reasons 5 years ago and I’m looking into retraining something non clinical. The shitty pay just makes me wonder why do I stress so much and do all the extra bits, if I will never be able to be a band 7. I started moaning and finding myself less proactive, it’s just not worth the trouble. Maenwhile my closest friends earn +50k and they are not at the top of their professions.
I keep lookin for a non clinical job in the nhs at my same band (6) to enjoy 9-5 hours and possibilities of promotion however they all ask for qualifications (finance, IT, business, etc). Can somebody point out which non clinical posts can clinical staff apply for? I am a physio (and before somebody asks, I have failed many band 7s interviews despite interview training, they want great examples in leadership and quality improvement, my examples are mediocre but at the same time I am not allowed to do anything else since we are always short staffed seeing patients on the ward non-stop).

I would also like to mention that for clinical staff all this non sense of family friend job doesn’t apply. Children are off school for a week on Christmas, Easter or midterm and you have no family in the country? Too bad! We are short staffed on those dates so to be fair, everyone is only allowed to take 1 day parental leave. The rest of the days? It’s not our business. Your child is sick? You can only get 1 day carers leave once or twice a year, depending on your manager. The rest comes from your annual leave but you will be pushed to return to work ASAP.

In paper, it looks like we have a lot of benefits, special leave and flexible working but in real life, you cant have them as they are all at the discretion of you manager and they will always tell you that they have to look after the needs of the service. I wouldn’t mind making this sacrifice for my personal and family life if I was earning big bucks and hoping for a promotion. But to be stuck at 38k max I might as well work somewhere else with less stress.

Do the NHS still do that accumulated sick leave thing? Seems most gripes here are interdeapartmental and not an actual comparison with the t&c's of many low-grade non-public sector workers.

Depends where you live really - round these parts (far SW) NHS and public sector jobs are very much sought after, for the working T&Cs that are far better than most jobs on offer - some of these jobs in other areas probably seem to be very unappealing compared to the many other jobs available.

One thing I've noticed is that, rather than train up the local workforce here, the best paid public sector jobs tend to go to the newcomers cashing in their properties and moving to a cheaper area, and getting these jobs based on 'work experience'.

Leaving the locals to the arse-wipe zero hours type jobs.

@SpiderinaWingMirror

The benefits are fair. What has changed is that they are no longer offered in the private sector.

In the past, public sector jobs tended to have lower salaries but better benefits, whilst private sector had worse benefits but higher salaries

In many fields, private sector salaries have not kept up with inflation and benefits remain poor

@Onandoff I would LOVE to know where you are! I’m a band 4 ‘pen pusher’ as you call it and considered to be very well paid while many of my other pen pusher colleagues are a band 3. The only band 6/7 or even 8 in my department are extremely qualified people who may not be front line but work horrifically hard behind the scenes.

I don’t know any PA’s who are above a band 4 whereas any nurse role in my health board starts at a band 5.

I am a band 7. I have 3 degrees and a post grad certificate in order to do my job, plus costs from my professional development courses which I pay for myself. I was making similar to my current salary 20 years ago when I worked in the corporate world. But I wanted to feel more fulfilled at work and undertook a lot of expensive education in order to work in my field. So no, I dont feel I am underpaid.

Overpaid!!!!!