Why is the NHS so generous with their employee leave

[Ionlywentandbloodydidit]

Maybe I’m just jealous plain and simple.
I work really hard in a patient facing private sector clinical role ( not transferable to NHS) , long hours, huge amounts of stress and responsibility just like NHS workers . Four weeks holiday , no sick pay , no time off for GP, dentist appointments etc . Not just me , this is completely normal in my industry.
The NHS is on its knees , I see it every day , I’m privately employed but am also registered with NHS as a performer ( it’s complicated ) .
I have several friends who work within the NHS as nurses, midwife’s etc . They are all mostly on eight weeks holiday per annum , regularly on leave for months at a time on full pay for various reasons such as two months for a miscarriage, six months for the death of a very elderly parent or a bad back or stress etc.
They will all receive a good pension .
I’m so intrigued ( and envious I admit ) at how the NHS can be so generous with tax payers money.
Im ashamed to say I’m beginning to resent my NHS friends some of whom are quite brazen with it, especially when I also see first hand how long waiting lists are for consultations / ops for my own patients / family etc .

NHS where I am tops out at 31 days annual leave, starts on 25 so you have to be there 6 years to get maximum. Why not look for a job in the NHS if you'd prefer their terms and conditions?

I’ve worked for the nhs for a number of years. The pay is average which makes up for the annual leave. -7 weeks per year. The sick pay policy is excellent but in the trust I work for it is really abused. There’s many employees that absolutely know how to play the system.

Also on AIBU is someone not looking forward to 2 weeks off over Christmas. Most NHS workers won’t be getting that. Leave is good for retention but the needs of the service come first.
Your industry clearly has poor terms, no sick pay and few holidays so what is keeping you there?

As a Sister I would not be automatically paid overtime! Time in lieu is a possibility. My line manager works copious hours unpaid or TIL just to get her regular work done. Every week.
Trusts will also have some different policies which will vary depending on current finances.
We can only recruit internally so it’s constantly ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ across departments.
There are still people who are propping up the system by doing extra and filling gaps but goodwill is diminishing at a fast rate. Morale is the lowest I’ve seen over 38 years.
With regard to sickness what gets me mad is the rise in sickness during school holidays. It is a big issue and needs looking at in terms of contracts and support for those who probably cannot afford extra childcare.

Like all public services - not their money, as it would be with other businesses.

Makes up for the crappy pay, I have a bachelors degree, a masters degree, professional qualifications, manage an entire department and am paid less than my sister in law who works as a trainee accountant and isn’t even qualified yet.

The trouble is you can’t get rid of people who take the piss with sick days etc. especially those who know how to play the system so you get stuck with some really work shy freeloaders. This makes discipline much harder. They would be out within a week in the private sector.

It's not any kind of criticism of the NHS and I mentioned it only because somebody wrote that NHS workers pay tax too. And that comment is almost always made as a comeback against people saying that it's tax payers funding public services. So it's a fair response.

Nobody paid with public money pays a penny towards keeping the state going. It's just a simple fact, it's not a criticism.

The tax on the pay a nurse is given in a private hospital relating to an operation on an NHS patient paid for by the NHS is exactly the same. The tax on the pay that same nurse receives out of income paid by a private patient does add to the money available to the government to provide public services. Likewise teachers in privately operated schools taking LA funded pupils.

Any tax paid out of income that was provided by public funds is the same, for whatever job and whoever does it.

The contribution to keeping the state going of people paid with public money to is the work they do, not the accounting fiddle that shows them as paying tax on their payslip.

It is not a criticism, it is just a fact. Ordinary public sector tax payers pay to keep the state going and pay the pay of the people working in the public sector or the interest on the money borrowed to pay them.

And since they are, in effect, the employers of the public sector they do have every right to comment on pay and conditions in the public sector compared to their own.

The sickness policy is much more strict now and they are getting rid of people. It’s not a quick process but it is definitely happening.
The school holiday absentees are probably those who either genuinely haven’t got childcare or sadly those who think why not. My OH and I covered school hols between us and had no local support whatsoever. But I can imagine single parents might struggle. It’s quite shocking how the rates rise especially over the summer hols.

Sorry, should say "ordinary privacy sector" in the penultimate paragraph.

Free parking in Scotland

Those in the NHS who are getting away with multiple absences are just not being managed properly. In my previous post I managed a large service and no one took the piss because both myself and my unit managers robustly managed sickness and absence.

I work at a University. It's 32 days holiday, Closed over Xmas and NY. Generally closed at w/ends on admin side. Lots of WFH now. Hours are usually 8-4, 9-5 depending what suits you and the Dept. Lecturers just do what they want seemingly. Come and work for us?

20 days plus bank holidays is the equivalent of 5.6 weeks. If people aren’t taking them then that’s a different problem.

you can join a generic union, it doesn’t have to be an industry specific one.

https://www.gmb.org.uk/

https://join.unitetheunion.org/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=282357521&gbraid=0AAAAADmhrd98-y1GFR_qsiaDae5FY94e8&gclid=Cj0KCQiAo4TKBhDRARIsAGW29bcKMGqzMtY0HiwpR4vlXsfmEqXxakrlkLfB4BEm_-PmJPpw_C7QfJEaAnbiEALw_wcB

You can, but what’s the point of your employer doesn’t recognise it?

I got 8 weeks off for a miscarriage (6 of those were literally the miscarriage and 2 were recovery from the surgery I eventually needed because of the 6 weeks of miscarriage not completing).

This really isn't typical. Ive had three miscarriages, all around 10/11 weeks. I had a single day off & one day working from home, 3 days off & 2 days wfh for the second which was complicated & required a D&C under general, and 2 days off for third.

I've never heard of anyone getting 6 weeks off

I didn’t have 6 weeks off, but I have also have numerous miscarriages and for one it was 2nd trimester, so definitely needed a few weeks off to recover, and for the others I had retained products so needed numerous surgical procedures to get them out (tried tablets, tried tablets again, had an evacuation, had a hysteroscopy). Plus multiple appointments for scans etc. I was at work between procedures but I was in a research post then and could work from a desk, reduce my hours, or work from home. I definitely was not at my best, and I could not have done a week of nights during that time for example. So it does depend on your role.

I have Ashermans and literally none of my miscarriages were straightforward - some people’s just aren’t. It doesn’t mean they are skiving.

The challenge for a compassionate employer like the NHS is that the more employees that take advantage of that compassion and take time off, those left behind on understaffed wards can get stressed / burnt out.

Its a vicious circle.

The NHS cannot keep employing more and more people to cover those taking advantage of their ‘compassion’.

I agree. But I think most NHS employees are not in that bracket. They get much the same annual leave as anyone else, ditto sickness etc. Perhaps those on long-term sick could be eased out somehow? I mean one cannot hang on to a job that one hardly ever does, surely?

I worked for L/A and partner works for NHS, I got a bit more A/L than him but he i believe gets more in the way of redundancy.

Say you have a team of 6. One team member plays the system. Everyone knows this but there is nothing that can be done. Sick with ‘mental health issues’ over the school holidays - goes on days out with the kids / on holiday as planned , as that’s good for their mental health recovery. Posts pictures of days out on social media. Other team members have to cover as team workload does not decrease. Impacts their time with their kids over the summer. ‘Sick employee’ returns (after Oct half term) to work on reduced hours - being paid full time. Allowed to leave early every day so able to pick their kids up from school. Colleagues are increasingly frustrated. Another one decides at Xmas they have had enough and goes ‘sick’ with stress due to increased workload.
Now there are 4 hard working and committed team members. No budget to get in agency support and the workload hasn’t decreased.

You can see why the whole NHS is grinding to a halt of inefficiency and employees are demotivated.

I'm non clinical in the nhs. I hate phoning in sick and have come in to work unwell because of the sarcastic, rude responses we get from our management team. I have phoned in once this year and was met with "who are you again? Not sure we've met. If you have no choice then be off" I had an awful cold, with a headache. I work on an oncology ward. All of our patients are immunocompromised. A cold could kill them. We're not allowed to work from home as we need to be onsite everyday according to management. I sit in an office and hardly move all day. We have next to no phone calls and a doctor/nurse might pop in a couple of times a day. Takes the piss. Our management work from home at least 2 - 3 days a week and we've had messages from them saying working from home today as unwell.

This isn’t just the NHS though. It’s the entire public sector. They can do what they want when they want with no accountability. Too many chiefs. DEI officers that don’t know what sex they are, no one going over and above (exclude docs and nurses here), they don’t work a single second over their contracted hours. And no matter how crap they are at their jobs, they are almost never, ever fired.
Actually,, as I write, I think that this is less NHS and more local council/government.
I’ve often thought only half jokingly that when I burn out of the private sector, and want to spend the last few years taking it easy, I’ll apply for a job at the local council. Pushing a few pencils around. A nice stress free cruise retirement.

Irish ED consultant here. I get full sick page ( was off for 14 weeks fully paid in 2023), 35 days AL at the moment. I'm entitled to it as I save lives and we should be getting more AL and benefits.