Following on from my initial post, I sense that there may be a new game being played now.
I have heard about a number of short-term jobs in NHS biomed shops of the type that in Happy Days of Yore would have been farmed out to Agencies, but are now being advertised as "fixed-term contracts" of so many months (3, 6 ... 12). That is, as an employee of the Trust for the period in question, at
pro-rata Band 4 or 5 rates of pay (that is,
less than the hourly rates of the past).
I am assuming that there must be a general aversion nowadays to hiring short-timers
via Agencies. Or could it just be that HR departments are becoming smarter (more flexible, imaginative ... whatever)?
For the tech himself, I guess it makes little difference if he was on PAYE (
etc.) with the Agency ... but not so good if he was with one of the infamous one-person "umbrella" companies where certain claims could be made against tax, and all the rest.
The bottom line seems to be Good News for the Trust, mainly as they not only avoid the Agent's fee (mark-up) but also get to "control" the guy more tightly than before.
A Buyers' Market, then.
Perhaps. But, for me, the Good News is that the tech now doesn't have to worry about insurance (usually carried by the Agency, by the way), as any and all risks must now be carried by the Trust. No more "blaming the Agency Tech", then!
Perhaps it's just me getting ancient and paranoid, but I have definitely detected a
nervousness in recent years in the NHS departments I know of (there has always been
tension). To put it bluntly, everyone seems to be [censored] scared of dropping a [censored], often spending a lot of time going to great lengths in covering their [censored]!
In fact, these days I sometimes question the wisdom of seeking work in such environments at all!
Is anyone (else) affected by all this? Any comments to make?
