NHS start date

[Boobahs]

Hi, I know this is a hypothetical question as it's actually up to the actual managers of the department, but here goes...

I'm being made redundant in Aug (I work term time so I would finish at the end of July when the kids break up - 10 weeks after this one). I've been offered a term time only job in the NHS and all my employment checks are showing as complete on the Trac website. I've not heard off my new department yet, or received an unconditional offer letter.

I'm about to be given my 12 weeks notice of redundancy, and am hoping to get to the summer so I would be able to get my redundancy package. I would need to give 8 weeks notice after receiving my unconditional offer anyway, so it would only be a couple of weeks before breaking up for the summer if they wanted me to start asap. Do I have much chance of the NHS waiting until Sept for me to start? Has anyone else asked them to wait a bit longer for a start date?

We recently had this request from someone. She had taken a short term contract while waiting for all the pre employment checks. We have no choice but to say yes really, because we are desperate to recruit staff.
I imagine they will say it's ok, but it might depend on the department's particular needs.

Thanks for your reply. The new job is actually mainly working in schools too, so I'm assuming that not much would be able to happen in the couple of weeks before the summer holidays, other than the onboarding/training days.

I'm just desperately hoping that timings work out for me, as I'd be gutted to miss out on my redundancy as it would really really help me out right about now!

As you’d have to give 8 weeks notice, I would imagine it will make very little difference to them if you start in September for a term-time contract. You could always offer to do some e-learning over the Summer, and maybe your current job would let you have a couple of days in July for training / work-shadowing?

NHS recruitment can be quite slow anyway, so maybe this will fall out naturally as you'd like it to anyway.

When you do come to a discussion about start dates, just ask for what you'd like, and hopefully they'll just say OK 🙂. They've already invested time / money in your application, so they won't want to lose that.

And of course, you don't want to risk your redundancy package - I think you mentioned something about that.