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 .

Try being self-employed; zero holiday or sick pay! 😀

Why don't you get a job in the NHS?

I don't think it's excessive. I work in the NHS (20 years), and get 33 days leave plus BH. Sick pay is generous, but I've never taken much. Pension is good but downgraded on what it used to be, and people starting now are on worse.

But there's downsides- no bonus even if you do really well, no negotiating on salary, no Christmas meal out, pay for parking, buy your own tea and coffee, poorer pay than private sector etc. Job security is reducing - my Trust are redeploying people (redundancy is too expensive), so I could be forced into a job which is further away/ poorer paid.

I think the few perks we do get are the reason people stay. I do think people who take the piss with sick leave should be managed better though. We had to appoint someone who had previously had huge amounts of sick leave as we couldn't discriminate, and low and behold she's continued the same way which is infuriating. A private employer wouldn't have appointed her with that record.

I have 2 Dsis who work in a local nhs hospital. It sounds very different to what is being written about here ! Staff going in when feeling ill because if you have 3 separate absences (regardless of number of days) its a meeting to discuss this, like a disciplinary. Staff NOT taking time off when really they should, because they're frightened of repercussions?

One of our managers kept having time off as her dog was sick dog died so she had a week off.

It goes up per year. First year you get 4 weeks plus weeks 1/2 pay, second year you get 8 weeks etc.

however what you’re not including is the harsh way they do deal with sickness. If you have 3 absences in 12 months that’s a stage 1 sickness and if you get to stage 4 you can be sacked.

I was taken to a stage 4 sickness meeting because I was having a bone marrow transplant and had been off for 3 months whilst an inpatient In the hospital I work in. I had to attend this meeting in Person and suddenly seeing me grey and bald and looking absolutely at deaths door they realised I probably could have done without the Spanish Inquisition. It’s still on my record though.

How do you think the secretaries and cleaners get to their desks? Do you think the maintenance staff have private lifts? Do you assume that procurement work in a hermetically sealed bubble? Non-clinical staff may not be doing AGPs on a regular basis but they are still surrounded by illness far more than the general public. They’re going in lifts, touching handrails and door handles, using bathrooms that are being used by unwell people.

@Ionlywentandbloodydidit

NHS probably has enough employees smart enough to join ther relative trades union(s). Well known (in most westernised countries) that workplaces with strong/high union membership, LARGELY have better remuneration and working conditions.

I say "good on 'em!"

This. How are your skills non transferable to an nhs role ?

More fool you for taking a contract with such appalling indeed illegal conditions? Do you want everyone to be similarly miserable?

You appear to be making up scenarios to be angry about.

Are you doing some kind of creative writing course?

Blimey. That’s a lot of holiday.

It does fall a bit to those of us in farming. I’m technically self employed so we are lucky to get a week away, possibly two. Other than that we work virtually every other day.

I’d love to give our staff more than the bare minimum of legal holiday but the supermarket dictate our pricing and there’s no way that would encompass even paying cover for an extra weeks holiday per year let alone the 2.4 some people are getting. Employing people is extortionate these days.

If only it was a piece of creative writing.
If you think this type of thing doesn’t happen in the public sector (not just NHS) where employees are confident that that they will not lose their jobs and so they are happy to max out their time away from the workplace, you are very naive.

Some people are very selfish. Only do what is best for them and happy to play the system, irrespective of the consequences for their colleagues.

There are many fabulous hardworking and committed employees in the public sector but some of them are getting increasingly tired, stressed and ‘burnt out’ as a result of their colleagues playing the system.

I work for the nhs, he's we get paid sick leave but there's a tremendous amount of guilting that goes on if you use it. The annual leave is a perk that improves with time so it's not better than private sector originally then the longer you work there you get additional leave after 5 then 10 years. I have a profession that is more commonly privately employed, minimal numbers of us in the NHS and pay is much higher privately the leave etc bridges that gap. Also pay bands are set, once you reach your limit that's it, no perks, no bonuses.

I prefer my nhs role over my private role but I'd undoubtedly make more money privately. Also nhs comes with a lot of weird cliquey behaviors from management at times and a lot of clinical managers with more clinical than management or people skills. Still I love it. Hard to explain why. I hate the drive to earn money for bosses in the private sector, I'm not desparately motivated by it. Just as busy in the NHS but the drivers for that FEEL more worthwhile, reducing waiting times, ongoing patient care etc.

Are you sure your skills aren't nhs transferable? I can't think of any clinical roles that aren't really? Dentistry? Optician? Pharmacist? Audiologist? Podiatrist? All have roles on our health board. I can't think of anything patient facing in a profession that doenst

I've had 7 miscarriages, 6 while working for the NHS and several I worked through, they were early and I discovered it happening at work but ploughed through my clinics because after a while you just don't want to call someone and tell them your body has failed you again. I was back at work the week after my mum died when I was 30 and 3 days after my granny died the following year. I found out a good friend's baby had died of meningitis while I was at work and despite the devastation I went straight back into my fully booked clinic. It's not just lack of pay that stops yous taking time off. It barely factored me acfually. The times I've heavily used sick pay were for bestest while during my healthy pregnancies after various complications and I was massively grateful for that at the time because I couldn't risk my pregnancies. Then when my eldest had health problems as a baby I ended up having to leave my role and relocate due to bullying from management about going home every time he was blue lighted to hospital and not 'letting my husband take his turn' (we were both there. He almost died repeatedly. Anyway they annoyed me and I had to leave. Sorry for the essay but just know that just because leave is paid doesn't mean you ever feel you can use it without significant consequences

"Entitled"? The bin collectors have just collected my bin. They do dirty, smelly, important, low paid work that also saves lives. I thought this God complex had dimished among medical consultants these days but obviously sadly not in some of you.

I'm grateful for the work that you do in A&E, but please be humble enough to realise that you rely on bin collectors and many other people for your own health and wellbeing ..... and for paying your wages.

The available evidence doesn't back you up on that. It suggests than non clinical staff are no more likely than any other workers to pick up an infectious disease, possibly because the general public are also surrounded by infectious disease.

Fuck you

I’m in a senior clinical role with 25 years experience earning £23.82 an hour. I’d rather the NHS paid me a proper wage and scrapped the generous leave entitlements. There are definitely people working for the organisation who take the piss and the people who don’t pay the price for it

I'm sorry that from your user name and your response that you are finding life stressful. Your job is really important, nothing in my post changes any of that. It's just a pain fact about how society pays for what it needs. There is no criticism involved.

Well looking at it from another angle …. does this mean that if the tax and national insurance contributions I pay are irrelevant and just “creative accounting” then my advertised salary is also “creative” and that rather than earning £32,500 a year I earn £24,000 because that’s what I take home ?
In that case I really am badly paid for someone with numerous higher education qualifications, professional registration, more than
20 years experience and management responsibilities

Yes that's exactly what it means. It would be exactly the same for the finances of the country if you were just paid £24,000 with no tax.

Comparing your tax free salary with somebody else's gross salary doesn't make much sense. Everyone works for what they take home, however its paid.

It certainly doesn't sound as if you have a great salary for what you do.

Yes exactly. So I’ll take my excellent extra annual leave and my humane sick leave policy and you can shove your jealousy and pettiness up your a hole, whilst feeling really saintly that you are contributing to the running of the country with your well paid work and ‘real’ tax contributions

There just isn't any need for this nastiness. I have not personally criticised any of your terms and conditions. I have made it clear that public sector jobs are important. I described a factual situation in response to another poster, I have absolutely no need to be jealous of your situation, and there is no call for you to be so vicious.

Cool story, bro