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 .

This is how work should be. Private enterprise usually means huge profits for the owners/shareholders at the expense of the workers.

I work in the public sector (not NHS) and we have proper pay rises, incremental holiday allowances and a good pension scheme. This is the minimum that everyone should get.

If you're running a business and can't afford to pay decent wages and provide adequately for your staff then you shouldn't be running a business.

I'm guessing you are civil service!
Dont get complacent. Things will change.
It really feels like there is a race to the bottom for all employees right now.

Absolutely this

I am a paramedic in the NHS. 20 years service. Over the years, I’ve had time off sick mainly for injuries - back injury from an awkward lift at work, two torn calf muscles, knee ligaments and after being stabbed in the neck with a fork by a patient. I’ve also been punched in the face, spat on, pushed down some stairs, had cat litter thrown over me, been bitten by an out of control dog, been sexually assaulted and threatened with weapons many times. I did not have time off for those. That’s alongside the daily verbal abuse we get.
Also alongside the cumulative effect of witnessing and being involved in traumatic events for years which in a very large percentage of ambulance workers usually results in cPTSD. The suicide rate for ambulance workers increases yearly. I have personally had 4 colleagues die by suicide and others who were close/attempted.
I have not had any maternity leave and have always returned to work from sickness as soon as I could. If you have an injury you can’t just struggle through it because you have to lift and carry people down stairs etc, climb into mangled vehicles, climb through windows, etc etc. It is a physical job and you have to be actually fit to do it.
We have shit working conditions, shit management, shit support, shit equipment and resources, shit cultural issues and shit vehicles.
I am waiting for cancer tests. If I do turn out to have cancer I’ll need time off sick and I’m not going to be guilted and made to feel like shit for it. If the general public is going to resent me and make shitty comments for that they can fuck right off.

Typically the base pay is significantly lower but the whole benefit package and the stability makes being a public sector worth the lower pay. So you have to weigh up your options, lose pay but stable job with more work life balance or better pay?

Our sickness policy is also that if you have more than 3 episodes of sickness in a rolling year you are called to a meeting with management and HR and they begin the stages towards getting rid of you. You’re put on an action plan and if you have another episode of sickness they decide if it was warranted and if they don’t think it is you move to the next stage. Once you get to stage 3 you then go to a panel hearing and they’ll bin you on capability.
It isn’t impossible to get binned. They do it all the time. It doesn’t happen sometimes because managers are usually totally shit at following policy properly.

If I do turn out to have cancer I’ll need time off sick and I’m not going to be guilted and made to feel like shit for it. If the general public is going to resent me and make shitty comments for that they can fuck right off.

What a scary time for you, I hope you get good news soon.

But do you really think that people will resent you for having time off for cancer treatment?

That isn't what the OP is saying AT ALL.

Private enterprise usually means huge profits for the owners/shareholders at the expense of the workers.

If the company is huge then profits may be huge in terms of £millions. But they are often tiny in terms of percentages, Wetherspons is about 3% and Tesco about 4% and a sudden downturn in business or rise in costs could put them into liquidation.

But whatever the profit, those profits and the dividends paid to shareholders are taxed.

And your wages (and the tax you pay on them) are paid out of that tax. Or by borrowing, the cost of which is ... paid out of tax and that borrowing only is possible because of what private industry creates and sells. And like the majority of public sector workers on defined benefit pensions, I suspect you have absolutely no idea how much your pension is costing current and future taxpayers or what it would cost someone without one to buy an index linked pension of the same size on the open market.

Yes. You only have to look at the posts on threads like these. They would rather I just get sacked and replaced with someone healthy who can ‘do the job’.

It's not a race to the bottom is it. Maybe you should join a union and fight for better terms and conditions in your industry rather than begrudging other workers their conditions and the NHS for providing decent leave and sick time.

This x1000000009

No one gets 6 months bereavement leave. They will have gone on long term sick and come back on sickness monitoring.
If you are going to come on here trying to draw criticism of NHS staff / leave then at least have your facts straight. You look ridiculous otherwise

why don’t you apply for a job in the NHS if you want “8 weeks leave”? Will take you 10 years to get there though

Now that I’ve had time to process the stupidity of some of the points in the OP, let me try and consolidate things:

1. amount of leave: People regularly work 12 hour shifts, which is far longer than most people’s standard work day. If you work it out as a ratio of hours of leave vs hours worked, I suspect you’ll find it comes out even. Also, the leave allowance is pro-rata. You don’t get 33 days until you’ve given 10 years of service.
2. Private sector vs NHS: I’d be willing to bet you are paid considerably more to compensate you.
3. bereavement leave: this is just a barefaced lie. Nobody is getting 8 weeks off for the death of an elderly parent. The standard amount of compassionate leave is about 5 days.
4. sickness: the NHS does have a very generous sickness policy. Perhaps it might ave something to do with the fact we all spend our days being exposed to disease and are therefore more likely to get sick than the general population. Not to mention the amount of stress we are faced with on a daily basis. Do people spit on you and threaten to stab you at work?

More fool you for working for an employer who doesn't look after you. If you work in the public sector there is often a ceiling to the amount you can earn and you will be on far less than if you were doing the same job in the private sector, there are no financial incentives, no bonuses, no heavily subsidised company car, no all expenses paid company do's etc. The pay unless you are band 8/9+ is pretty rubbish let's face it given the amount of training and then how hard you have to work in many of the jobs, often antisocial hours too. There are no financial incentives so they need to have other benefits, decent holidays, paid sick leave and a decent pension to attract/retain their workforce.

But... in saying all this people do play the system, I'm also public sector but not nhs, although i work with many people on nhs terms and conditions, out of my very small team of 6 people I am the only person who hasnt taken at least a month off sick (in 1 go) in the past 6 months (I can't actually remember the last time I had a day off sick). 1 person in my team who is paid a decent sum 80k, has in the past 12 months had around 4/5 months off, in 2 separate absences all on full pay. Another person has had 2 months off, the other had 2 months off this year july-aug and then did the same last year, one was with a broken wrist that was in plaster, we work from home on laptops, why she couldn't continue to work just at a slower pace I have no idea, she took 2 months off, again full pay. Another he was off for over 2 months june/july and then did a phased return where he started at 10.30 and finished at 2.30/3 with an hours lunch, this went on for 4 months, he did nothing as whenever you asked him to do anything he'd either be on lunch or about the leave for the day 🤣. We are not working in a high pressured team, yes we have deadlines and plenty of work to do but I wouldn't say we are so up against it you'd need months off stressed! I'm 100% confident if my colleagues didn't receive paid sick leave they would all be at work.

I actually thought a few months back am I a mug not taking my annual extra 2 months holiday 😆, I obviously wouldn't do that, but that's how it felt, at one point 4/6 people were off.

Private sector patient's aren't as unwell and knackered as NHS patients. The private sector only deals with profitable bits of healthcare, you don't see BUPA Spire hospitals running elderly care wards. Working conditions are so much nicer in the private sector as well.

If you don’t like the entitlement that comes with your job… then go work for the NHS.
You can then see whether the annual leave entitlement is worth all the shit that comes with it.

Oh shove off..is all I'm going to say

I didn't add bank holidays because those are statutory and not a bonus. I don't want to be off on those days, there's no choice in them.
The max annual leave after 10+ years of service is 33 days of annual leave which is what I get. Which is roughly 6.6 weeks which sounds really generous when it's put like that but it isn't.

Part time workers and flexible workers aren't "always off"; they're working their hours just like you do. And they get paid for the hours that they do, it's not like they're working part time but getting paid full time. The nursing workforce is probably makes up the largest demographic within the NHS and around 90% of nurses are female. Females tend to be the ones who have the majority of family caring responsibilities (not saying that's right but it's fact) and there are also many single mothers who would leave nursing entirely due to not being able to do shift work etc if it weren't for part time/flexible working.

Public sector workers have good benefits and crap pay. Private sector workers have better pay and worse benefits. That's just how it is and how it's been for decades. Choose what's more important to you and find a job accordingly.

That's not quite true either. It's, as many posters have said, 33 days plus 8 days bank holidays.

The misinformation on this thread is frustrating.

"pretty much everyone is always off" exagerration much?

re the bank holiday entitlement….its 8 days. If you are rostered as a day off on a bank holiday it is deducted from your entitlement. If you are rostered onto a shift you have a day off in lieu added to your basic entitlement. After 20 years I get the maximum 33 days leave. Plus any days in lieu (up to 8) where I am rostered to work a bank holiday.

re actually getting your leave. Good luck trying to get the days you actually want to take. Applications for leave are regularly refused, then you get berated because you haven’t “followed policy” and booked the percentage of leave you’re supposed to. Eventually they just allocate your annual leave to you on days it suits them.

Seems like an appropriate place to drop this old cartoon.

Despite the fact that the wealth gap is wider than ever, British politics is dominated at the moment by the power of the extremely wealthy who are determined to make the lower paid squabble amongst themselves while they enrich themselves further. While we complain that our neighbour has an extra day of holiday each year or had an extra day off when her mum died, we miss the fact that the rich own more assets than ever before, are richer than ever before, pay less tax than ever before.

Stop resenting your fellow workers and start resenting those people who are really benefitting from the shitty situation the country and the world is in

That very much depends on what level you’re at. Lower levels get paid more in the private sector in my experience.