NHS contract after family career break

[fourleafclover82]

Hello, I worked for the NHS in an allied health role as a band 7 for 5 years and then took a career break for 4years to start a family. I was salaried mid band after 5 years. I recently worked super hard to get back on the hcpc register to continue working in my field and was successful in getting a job offer for exactly the same post I was previously in so same skill set etc. However In my job offer contract they want to start me back at the bottom of the band 7. Has anyone any experience on this. It feels very discriminatory that we have to start at bottom of the band just because I took a step back to have a family for a few years. Any advice regarding HR and how to approach this would be helpful! Thanks.

Did you know the salary before you accepted the job?

I'd assume if you did you could have negotiated a bit then.

Yes have previous pay slips etc with spine point and salary as proof. I just assumed that it would be considered since you have to fill in all previous employment and salary on the application itself!

I think the phrase you want to look for in your Trust's HR guidance is "reckonable service".

It doesn't look like it's guaranteed that your previous service will be enough to start you further up the scale but it may be considered (example policy from Hull - just the first one that came up in my Google search: www.hullccg.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/starting-salaries-and-reckonable-service-policy-v2.pdf )

It should be taken into account for things like annual leave entitlement.