NHS bank pay

[IsTheOffDutyDoneYet]

Nurse, work in the NHS. Today we received an email from our trust to inform all staff that starting in the next 6 weeks if you do any bank shifts as a band 5 or above, you will only be paid at the bottom of band 5 regardless of where you are on the scale.

AIBU to have had enough of this? I’m a band 6, only get paid band 5 for bank shifts unless specifically have picked up a band 6 shift - bit of a grey area, as staff know you’re a band 6 and you’re consistently asked to go above the expected band 5. At least we were being paid at the top of band 5, but now we are going to be paid bottom of band 5 with the same expectations on us and more. Yes, money needs to be saved but there is no respect for the experience and knowledge staff bring to the role by making this change. I was half expecting it as other trusts are already doing this, but it really is beyond the pale. How are other nurses finding the bank at their own trusts? Are less people picking up bank shifts? We are already trying to deal with growing caseloads and not enough staff…this is just going to compact the issue.

Before anyone says it - yes we did all know the pay before we came into the job, however bank pay was paid at your banding on the scale of your substantive post.

NHS Bank is a pain in the arse - actually putting in a claim for payment is very hit and miss and takes ages.
I changed jobs recently and my old team were happy to keep me to do some out of hours shifts until the new people were fully trained - the bank people are making it nigh on impossible endless forms etc and just as I thought it was sorted was the sentence I agree to bank applying for the DBS for annoyeddd and agree to pay the required fee.

What!!!!!!! And considering I had been on the bank already for about five years doing the same out of hours shifts

Honestly I think it’s compacting an already bad problem, but with such a push on saving money I’m not surprised. I know at our local hospital when they stopped overtime being paid at 1.5x mostly people stopped doing overtime, it wasn’t worth it for the pay, and now with changes to bank work anyone who was still doing a bit extra for the extra money is unlikely to continue.

It is shit, but it is clearly, unfortunately, going to take shit really hitting the fan before anything is actually done here. The safety and success of wards, A&E etc currently is largely reliant on the goodwill of nurses and doctors to stay beyond their hours out of a sense of duty and not much else. They know, or hope, that those who are there will feel they have to choice but to stay behind or come in early with a guilt trip. The only way to actually make it clear how bad these problems are would be for everybody to just for a month simply walk out on the dot of their shift finishing time, and only do their own rota’d shifts.

I have a friend who was recently in hospital and at the time we were there and chatting there were 5 members of staff for the floor, 3 of them had already finished their shift but “couldn’t” in good conscience leave because it would leave the wards dangerously understaffed- and that’s not a one off. The only way to expose the problem is for everybody to go “ok, I’ll show you exactly what you pay for”, the impact would be huge.

It changed to the bottom of band 5 in my trust ages ago. Now the bank has stopped altogether.

Christ on a bike. I thought ours was poor - paying mid band 6 when I'm top band 6. I just refuse to do any at all. But this takes the absolute mickey! What have the unions said?

I would refuse to do bank!

Can’t recall what the change was in our Trust, think it went to mid point of your band.

I just won’t do bank. Generally only do it to support my team occasionally anyway. I’m top band 6 in a team of all band 6’s so I don’t think they could ever drop the bank grading to 5 thankfully.

The Trust are also trying to stop agency usage, it’s beyond me how they think they can do that without incentivising bank work.