Au Pair extra hours and registering her with doctor questions

[Smileymoo]

Hi, we're about to get our first au pair. I've found loads of info on the internet about what the standard arrangement is: 25 hours, 2 nights of babysitting etc.. We live in London and I'm wondering what should we agree to pay her for any extra hours she works if on the odd occasion we ask her to do a little extra. Does £6 an hour sound about right. Should it be more if it's during the daytime? Second question is should we/can we register her with our local nhs doctors' surgery? Thanks for your help!

I think £6 an hour is good.

Tbh, if our aupair were to work a little longer in a day (e.g. I am home late by an hour), I don't pay her extra. This is because there are many days where I am home or where I take over the school run (which is part of her duties) and I let her have the day to herself as she has little or nothing to do. She still gets paid the normal pocket money on those days. So I don't feel bad if on other days she has to work a little longer. It is all give and take.

If my aupair does holiday cover, she works a full day and I pay her £20 per day extra for that.

I don't know what other families do, but so far all my aupairs seem happy with that arrangement.

You can register her with the local GP. You just have to furnish a letter to the GPs that she is living with you as an aupair.

Good luck with it!

I pay £5 an hour on top.

You should register with a GP (assuming she is EU?) If not EU you may not be able to.

I pay £6 for any babysitting, day or night (except hours which are included in her contract)

Many thanks for your replies. AP is European so it sounds like it should be straightforward to register her with GP. Thanks blueshoes for mentioning holiday cover pay as well. How many hours is a full day for your AP during school holidays? I would need mine to do 10 hours, so I applied the extra hours rate of £6 per hour, that would be £60 per day.

My aupair will do 10-12 hours a day during the school holidays. Since I already pay her for 7 hours a day during term time, I only need to top up a further 3-5 per day for which I pay her an extra £20 per day.

My children are 9 and 6 and play together most of the time or have friends over, so it is not full on childcare for the aupair. Towards the end of her working day, she might go to her room and surf the net, and my dcs eat/play downstairs or watch DVDs in her room.

I would say £60 a day is generous. That would be the daily cost of an expensive nursery in London. You need to compare that to the cost of paying a holiday club for that time. If you are already paying her for 25 hours a week (ie 5 hours a day), you need only pay her an extra 5 hours a day.

I give spending money to the aupair to take the children out over the holidays and buy little treats - maybe £30 a week. I pay for all activities, like swimming and days out. A bit like if she were a nanny, I guess.

Thanks again blueshoes. I'd forgotten that 25 hours is already covered during a holiday week so given my AP will only be working 4 days a week, that's only 4 hours extra per day I'd need to pay for.