Working for NHS CCG

[Careerswitcher123]

Anyone here work for NHS Clinical Commissioning Group?

Would you recommend it?

My friend's sister works as a Patient Safety and Quality Specialist for a CCG and always raves about it and boasts about her salary. She says she gets 60K but she is known to stretch the truth.... She started as admin and worked up.

It does sound quite interesting but I have another friend who works for a CCG and says it's so dull and boring.

Anyone?

Standard, corporate NHS job, can't see what's special about it?

I've never really heard of it being referred to as 'working for a CCG'. Most people would just say they work in the NHS doing X.

But it's band 7 job in agenda for change so more like £40k - £45k . It's data analysis and dealing with complaint issues.

I recently interviewed for a role in the CCG and I withdrew my application after the interview as it seemed like a miserable and adversarial job.

for context I work as a nurse in a senior position in the private sector, and found the interview and application process for the CCG slow, and unprofessional.

I could surmise from the questions I was asked and the ones I asked the interviewers, that the caseload seemed big and there wasn’t very much definition to the expectations of the role. I imagined (much like other nhs roles) it would either be hard or very easy to advance your career, depending on who you know etc.

Obviously I could be wrong, I haven’t worked there. But initial impressions put me right off x

They won’t be CCGs for much longer. Soon to become ICBs or ICSs with a much bigger footprint. The quality and culture of CCGs varies wildly across the country.

I work for a CCG and I have a very good salary. So good, I feel a tremendous guilt for it considering I used to work as a community nurse 5 years ago. I enjoy it, but then I like meeting families and writing about health conditions.

I do keep hearing this. What would actually change in this respect? I don't know much about it all works. Everyone's jobs would be safe and pretty much remain the same, right?

I think I heard someone say she was band 6. Maybe she is band 7 then. I take it these kind of roles you can work your way up to earning 100K+ in the future?

Every ccg is different and full of different jobs at different levels . There is going to be more change as well when they become part of ICSs as have been previously said.

You need to look at the specific job description for any job you want to apply for to get an idea of what your role would be.

And to go from band 7 to what would be a band 9 at £100000 is rightfully a long, slow process where you would have to apply for jobs that are promotions. Band 9 jobs include roles such as chief finance manager and director of services.

As an example it has taken me (a non clinician) nearly 12 years to go from band 6 to band 8b. People can do it more quickly of course but nothing is guaranteed.

Didn't realise it was such a long process. Friend's sister made out like she would go from 60K to 80K then 100K in the next few years.

There is no role within the NHS that guarantees a move up through the agenda for change payscale as your friend is saying.

@Motnight Thanks. At least I know now that it's not quite what she was making it out to be. I've never worked in the NHS and actually don't know a lot of people who do, so I just took her word for it and she is always raving about how great her career is working for a CCG in the NHS.

Op it might be a great role, with great possibilities! But it's not as your friend has said re automatic promotions etc.

There isn't a job in the entire NHS, CCG or otherwise that would guarantee those kind of promotions/salary increase OP so rest easy that your friend is pulling your leg there 😂£100k jobs do exist in the NHS but are extremely senior (director level) and you wouldn't get them without a lot of experience and a very high level of qualification and skills, plus you'd have to apply competitively for them, no-one would be guaranteed the job. CCGs are administrative/corporate bodies that plan and coordinate healthcare across their region, so higher banded jobs probably are more common than in hospitals but if anything it probably takes longer for a 'generalist' (as opposed to say an accountant or IT person that have a slightly different pathway) to get there as it's specialist work that you have to learn on the job, but either way the NHS simply doesn't work on an 'in X years you get £Y promotion' system, everyone works their way up at different rates, some people stay on Band 5 (graduate-ish entry level) forever, others may get a couple of promotions in fairly quick succession, so it's quite possible you'd get to Band 6 or 7 in a managerial/commissioning/patient safety role within a few years of graduating/starting but straight to Band 9, nah!

CCGs and commissioning generally is a bit marmite as an NHS career choice, some people like the small organisations and the specialist/strategic nature of the work, a lot of people, me included find them a bit stifling (most employ max 100 people where you'd have thousands in an average hospital trust) and the work quite dull. Plus when I worked in commissioning the endless political changes were quite frustrating with constant reshuffling into bigger then smaller then bigger units/regions again, the system is about to go through yet another structural change to ICSs/Bs - personally I find hospital trusts much easier to understand and work within!