NHS staff furloughed?

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Can NHS staff be furloughed? Has anyone done this?

Or requested it and had an answer either way?

As far as I'm aware no. It's not a thing. You either work as normal, work from home or work somewhere else. Why do you ask?

I'd imagine NHS staff will be redeployed rather than furloughed if a particular service is closed.

Furlough shouldn’t apply to public sector workers. And surely the NHS has plenty of work to be done?

Round here, people are redeployed to cover sickness absences. Not a chance of a furlough. It's work, WFM (some admin staff, some clinical services which have had a substantial move to telephone consultation) or sick leave (if isolation required)

I dont think you can be furloughed, lots of departments in our hospital are working from home though

Furlough is used to avoid staff being laid off.

I can't think of anywhere in NHS that is contemplating a reduction in head count.

No. But perhaps if your role is not considered essential you would be granted unpaid leave, have you spoken to HR? But no way would you get furlough.

It might be worth asking if you have good reason, but I really cannot see why it would happen. We have a few staff having to work from home in my team due to health issues, they are sorting out referrals, 'manning' a new helpline that we have set up, pulling our telephone messages and responding to them if possible or passing them to us if they can't, responding to complaints etc, plenty of admin jobs can be done off site.

There is plenty of work to be done.

Furloughing is really more about protecting businesses and the economy - reducing unemployment and therefore UC claims etc.

It isn't really for public sector staff who can be redeployed, we have AHPs who are now cleaners or HCA's. Council staff have been redeployed to death registrations and the crematorium. Civil servants have been redeployed to assist with UC claims etc etc.

I don't know what is happening with staff who are struggling with childcare, is that your concern? Perhaps some of these other posts might offer more flexibility with shift times.

Publicly funded employees cannot be furloughed as I understand. Because the "Govt" already pays your wages so no advantage to your employer applying to the Govt to fund your (furloughed) wages

@TinnedPearsForPudding yep this is spot on, as your role is already government funded they won’t pay out twice, so in effect you can’t be furloughed.

Thanks for the responses and explainations, all makes sense.

No. My mum is NHS, she usually works in clinical trials but these are suspended at the moment so she's been moved onto the wards.

People are being redeployed in our trust rather than furloughed. There’s plenty of work to be done if your normal area of expertise temporarily cancelled eg elective surgery.