Nhs - redeployment during maternity leave. Help!ave

[PinkMitten]

Hoping someone out there may have a similar experience, or just any insight.
I'm currently 7 months into nhs maternity leave, due to return in March. Whilst off, however, the service I worked for has closed. Due to me having a permanent contract, I will be offered redeployment to a similar role in the Trust.
My concern is with HR contacting me about all of this during my mat leave - whilst I understand it would be ideal to go straight into a new role when I return, I'm keen to know if I can/should be asking to postpone any discussions until my mat leave has ended. It's quite stressful to think about this at the moment.
Would be very grateful if anyone has any advice.

They have an obligation to consult with you about changes to your role, and they can’t put the whole process on hold until you come back. Women on mat leave often get forgotten about in these situations, so it’s right that they have included you. Has the consultation period ended now? Has your new role been confirmed? If so, then it think it’s fine to ask that any further discussions on returning to work/training etc, can wait until closer to your return date.

This happened to me when I was on maternity leave. I was sent a list of job vacancies at my pay band and then I could choose which one I wanted. Have you been sent anything like that?

It worked out really well for me because I was able to choose a job that suited my new life as a mum, so I picked one where I didn't have to work evenings and weekends and could pop home in my lunchbreak to feed the baby.

I appreciate you would rather not discuss this now but your employer is doing the right thing.

They will have vacancies they need to fill and will want to give you the opportunity to find the right job for you.

Thanks so much all for these comments, really helpful.

One of the issues is I'm in quite a specialist role, so the jobs that have been sent so far have been pretty different, and a long commute (previous role was 90% remote). I've not had a list, just been contacted ad hoc, but I think that's probably because there aren't enough jobs to form a list for me. If I had a decent amount of choice I would probably feel more positive, but as it stands I think I'll have to opt for something far from ideal.

I feel a bit disadvantaged in that my colleagues who were redeployed had time to think/meet re roles as the service closed, in their working week, whereas I'm expected to do this whilst on leave, looking after a very demanding baby! But I suppose there isn't really an alternative.

You'll have no job to go to if they do that. It's reasonable management practice.

You could ask for a KIT day or partial KIT day to go in and discuss?

@ByQuaintAzureWasp thanks so much - I emailed my HR contact and they are now looking into this for me but sounds like they will facilitate it.

A KIT day is a good idea. Your Board/Trust should have a redeployment policy so have a look at that in advance of your meeting and check to see if there’s anything about the number of offers you can reject - ours has a limit to stop people rejecting offer after offer. Are you in a union? If so, I’d speak to them now so they’re aware of your situation.