Is it impossible to get sacked in the NHS?

[Qwerty202]

That's what a colleague told me. Said colleague has had over 4 month's off sick.
I've only been in the NHS a few months, I'm enjoying my role and by all accounts have received good feedback about my performance. A few colleagues have said to me it's impossible to get sacked, sickness isn't taken seriously. I've had to wfh the last two days as my daughter is unwell and I can't send her to childcare. My manager was completely fine about it, didn't even mention I had to take it off as leave..
Just wondering why the benchmark is so low... Does anyone else who works in the NHS feel the same?

I work in a NHS arm's length body. In our organisation it is very difficult to be fired, though by no means impossible . The processes are long and intricate.

I know of several ex colleagues who took advantage of this.

Plus it is worth mentioning that your NHS contract follows you from place to place. So you can spend say 2 years in trust A, and then move to trust B and be in your 3rd year of NHS employment which gives you more employment rights.

It's not as difficult to sack people as some employers seem to believe, particularly if they're constantly off sick - as set out on this page. But the NHS seems particularly wary of it.

DSis works in an admin role in a large hospital. There are eight people on the staff of whom only four regularly turn up for work. Absentees include the supervisor who is rarely there more than two days together, so DSis ends up doing most of the supervisor's work. Eventually someone noticed and put in place a whole restructuring process with a view to reducing the admin staff to four: cue massive protests from the absentees that it would be absolutely impossible to run the department on that basis, even though most of the time that is exactly what happens. They've gone through a redundancy process which predictably resulted in the absentees being chosen for redundancy, but months later they're still there whilst they go through a process of seeing if they can be allocated to other departments (who are probably fighting not to have to take them). If they'd just grasped the nettle a long time ago and gone through dismissal procedures properly they'd have saved themselves a fortune. Even if they'd been taken to the tribunal it would have cost less than the money they've spent out on sick pay.

@ZealAndArdour of course there are some genuine cases but in my 11 years working for the NHS there are ALOT of people who play the system. Always ones that are rubbish at their job and come in late every day. When pulled up on it they go off on long term sick.

Winds me up massively because they are blocking a vacancy while the rest of us do their work.

@LegendaryReady - you don't get full sick pay for 2 years.

Our trust definitely sacks people, including a few consultants that i can think of. Usually sexual misconduct or fraud.
I’ve not seen people sacked for sickness personally, probably because we would have no staff left!

No, not the poster you're referring to. I came from the private sector into the NHS and I'm shocked how relaxed it is to be honest. Where I worked before, they were much more rigorous on monitoring staff absences and knew straight it if people were taking the pee.

@Qwerty202

No, not the poster you're referring to. I came from the private sector into the NHS and I'm shocked how relaxed it is to be honest. Where I worked before, they were much more rigorous on monitoring staff absences and knew straight it if people were taking the pee.

Just noticed you wfh instead of just had time off with your little one, why would you thinkf she would have said to take leave if you were working? Staff absences should be monitored and entered onto the HR system, but have a read through of policy and you'll see that being off for 4 months isn't foul of that. Do you think the private sector should do better, or the NHS do worse?

[quote FrauleinSchweiger]@LegendaryReady - you don't get full sick pay for 2 years.[/quote]
You do do if it's agreed on a discretionary basis, which it was.

Interesting ... and not my experience at all. Managers within the NHS still have to abide by the Trust policy and not just make it up as they go along

I've seen people get managed out quite quickly for sickness

My little one, when she's ill, she just sleeps which mean for the most part of the day I can actually work, my manager is great and I don't want to take advantage that's why I thought perhaps she might say to take carers leave etc.. However, the reason I ask is because my manager has just returned from her third maternity leave in four years, she's very part time and works 2 days a week, prior to her rejoining we had someone in the leadership team covering managerial duties for our team. We have a reasonably sized team but every person in the team has had long term absence, decides when they want to wfh even though we have a rota and a lot of them are late and leave early etc, it doesn't bother me one jot as it doesn't affect my work or my ability to do my job. I was just curious as to how it was in other trusts because it seems in mine you can get away with a lot and a lot of people take advantage of it which isn't good.

I don't see the issue with taking maternity leave or coming back part time personally, unless you view women taking what they are entitled to as protected by law as taking the mick. As with anywhere, a lot is management dependent, but that doesn't mean there aren't systems in place for managing absence etc, it does sound some of them take the mick regarding wfh, finishing early or late- but that's not the case across the board at all, especially outside of corporate roles. The same as anywhere really, I used to work in a supermarket and the manager turned a blind eye to people shirking, that also wasn't just accepted company wide, but was down to local management.

@LegendaryReady @FrauleinSchweiger

I too am surprised that full pay would by paid for two years.
Unless they were suspended for misconduct perhaps?

[quote tanstaafl]**@LegendaryReady* @FrauleinSchweiger*

I too am surprised that full pay would by paid for two years.
Unless they were suspended for misconduct perhaps?[/quote]
No, he was very ill with cancer and plenty of medical evidence, but no suspension or othe issues.

I currently work in the NHS but have worked in different public/private sector jobs in the past.

Yes, it does seem to be very difficult to be sacked in our dept. I only know of one case but he was an alcoholic who was literally drinking while working in a lab. Even that took a while. ....

Otherwise people seem to get away with take the p*ss with other people having to pick up on their work.

But I think this is more of a general public sector issue rather then being NHS specific.

Read consultant Peter Duffy's whistleblowing book "Whistle in the wind" and you'll see how the NHS management aren't interested in protecting patient's against lazy/incompetent doctors.

IME what usually happens in public sector organisations is that as soon as any sort of disciplinary action is taken people go sick and then they are managed out using the sickness absence policy. It will usually take a year (I.e.when their paid sick leave ends) to do it though, or involve a negotiated settlement that amounts to a very similar amount of money.

Nope, I was dismissed managed out after 11 years

@daisypond

No, there’s a lot of scapegoating and arse-covering, where people cover up mistakes and protect their own backs. I know people who were sacked. I actually think it’s quite a corrupt organisation.

I completely agree. If they followed absolute procedure there would be that much staff sacked it would lead an even greater staff shortage than there is now. It would be the collapse of the NHS completely. So they all muddle along covering arses, protecting & promoting their own selves. I could write a book about people I've come across who would have been 100% sacked in the private sector. The NHS for the most part has lower standards than the private sector when it comes to staff because they are such short staffed and posts are hard to fill.

sacking not so easy but I've seen a lot of people managed out and paid off and non-disclosure agreements signed because they were actually good at their job and a threat to people who were not but had more power than them.

Well I hope the NHS eventually manages out/sacks the bastard consultant who sexually assaulted me.
The managers etc have covered for him for two years now. I actually hate the NHS now.

It should be difficult to sack someone. There should be a number of legally mandated steps that allow for fair process - and there are. The fact that many businesses do not pay attention, do not give managers the training and support nor have the right HR skills to follow that process is at the heart of it.

Most the time it feels hard to sack someone is because for a long time that employee's under performance was just an irritation that never got dealt with formally - so when the business finally has enough they are lacking in the proper recorded history to act. So they then have to start from scratch and lose patience and attention when the person just gets a little bit better - rather than following it through to a conclusion of the right level of performance or employment termination.

If more employers followed proper (and fair) management processes they would find it easier to terminate when someone is not working out.

Which is how in the end, an option is just to pay someone to go away - it's easier and less hassle and sometimes cheaper than multiple people spending months managing that person out correctly.

The NHS is just a large scale example of that. Many managers across the NHS have neither time nor the skills to handle real HR issues.

@Stircraazy The lack of employment laws in the UK mean it is pretty easy to sack people, especially in the first two years of employment.

The NHS doesn't tend to dismiss, but there are plenty of cases where people are managed out (bullied), in particular in cases of whistleblowing.

It varies really on the individual and the foundation trust some have different rules too others trusts and I'm sorry to say your skin tone they don't like being accused of being racist in any way so they have to tread very carefully and rightly so but if you are low down the pecking order it is much easier.