Isit true

[jadey0891]

Hi
So I've been in contact with ACAS and CAB. They have both told me the same thing about being furloughed. They say that any public body can be furloughed but then when I said this to my manager he said key workers CANNOT be furloughed!! I'm getting mixed messages and don't no who to believe

Isit true that HCAS cannot be furloughed?

Anybody can in theory be furloughed yes, so ACAS and CAB are right, but it's up to your employer to choose who to furlough and they are entirely entitled to say no. The point of being furloughed is so that in industries which have temporarily been closed down or demand much reduced, those people don't lose their jobs and income. Obviously in the NHS/healthcare the workload has increased not decreased so why would they pay you to not work? It's not that anybody who wants to be furloughed can be if they ask.

Do you mind me asking why you want to be furloughed? Is it because of concerns about your health? If so what you need to be asking for is advice from Occupational Health about whether it is safe to be in work? My organisation (also public sector/key workers) have placed a number of front line workers on special paid leave (100% pay not the 80% you'd get with furlough) where there is clear advice that being on front line is risky for their health as they are clinically vulnerable, and they are not able to work from home...

@maxelly
Thanks for replying.
Yes it's due to my health concerns and my children's. My manager and nursing director bluntly said nhs staff cannot be furloughed!

Right I see, well forget about being furloughed, that is a non starter and just confusing things. There is no chance of you being furloughed.

You need to gather evidence of the impact on your health conditions specifically (rather than just general concerns about COVID which everyone might have), from Occupational Health, your GP, consultant, whatever, and you need to be asking about being taken off frontline duties, possibly to be redeployed, rather than being furloughed. It is difficult though as realistically there is only so much non front line work there to be done and patients still need to be looked after, and COVID isn't going away any time soon, so trusts are having to be pretty vigorous in who they allow to not work and who has to carry on taking the proper precautions. It sucks but there you are...

If you have one of the conditions or your family has in the shielding list you should be redeployed and work from home where possible. We've redeployed nurses and doctors to do audit other types of jobs that can be done from home to protect them. Redeployed a manager who's 10 year old is undergoing chemo to work from home 100%. I'm 36 weeks pregnant and been working solely from home since 28 weeks, and I Manage medicine/a&E. But yeah we aren't able to furlough any medical or nursing staff for obvious reasons. Furlough isn't to cover sickness or people with conditions that will be impacted by covid significantly. If the work is there they need someone to do it, if not safe for you to do they need to redeploy you to do something in a safer environment.

There is nothing specific in the Treasury Direction (the actual technical rules on furlough) stating that key workers cannot be furloughed as such.

However the guidance is pretty strong that it shouldn't be happening, and that public sector organisations should not be using the scheme.

They aren't going to furlough you (and even if they could, they wouldn't have to), so you need to enter into constructive discussions about what solutions there might be.

People who are paid from public funds can not be furloughed.
This hit nurseries very hard, as they had to close (to all but a few children) , but couldnt furlough many staff due to the 15 and 30 hours funding that parents use.
So I expect as an NHS worker, you can not be furloughed because you are paid from public funds.

I thought the NHS shielded people who were in the 'at risk' category - or asked them to work from home.

Employers in all sectors can apply, but the government expects that most public sector employers will not need to furlough employees either because they are working on essential services, or because the employer's public funding covers its staff costs.

The government guidance says that where employers receive public funding for staff costs, and that funding is continuing, they would expect employers to use that money to continue to pay staff in the usual fashion – and correspondingly not furlough them. This also applies to non-public sector employers who receive public funding for staff costs.