EBME Forums Forums Management Professional Issues Agenda For Change agenda for change

Job evaluation profiles are out for Medical Engineering Technicians

Medical Eng Tech JE score 272-288 Band 4
Med Eng Tech, Higher level JE 332-348 Band 5
Specialist Med Eng Tech JE 406-456 Band 6
Med Eng Manager JE 481-523 Band 7

Are they serious?

Have these evaluations been done by someone who has the slightest clue what we do or, as predicted, is it just a way of skimming funds off "easy" targets to pay out more to the good ol' Dr's and nurses

p.s I'm thinking of re-evaluating my footnote

Ok, so you get an R&R premium for n-years; then they take it away - what happens to your pension calculation? E.g. If you have 25 years service at £23299 (top of MTO3, no enhancement) and you move onto approximately £18,300 (top of AfC Band4) and they make up the difference with an R&R premium. What happens to the pension calcs then?

Subsequently they take away the R&R premium, say 5-years later, what is your pension calculation based on then? Does it affect all of the pensionable-period or only that after AfC is implemented? I guess there are over-50s out there, working in Medical Physics and EBME and the NHS generally, that may be forced to jump ship if this eventuality presents itself - or face losing out just before they retire later-on.

Try projecting your salary 5 years ahead, calculate your pension entitlement. Try recalculating it with 5 years of R&R at the lower rate, adding the benefits from previous service as in the scenario described. Hmm, not too much of a loss, eh? However; worst case the NHS could calculate the pension at the new lower salary after R&R is taken away, n-years after AfC. In the longer term you lose out, not just on the immediate loss of salary after n-years of R&R but your pension entitlement as well.

For a real shock; try it for an MTO4 (employed at a premium salary, during a period of really high demand - perhaps not a specialist) at the top of the grade, who may be regraded at top of band 4 for example - the maximum R&R of will apply (+30%) and the salary will still be less than what the MTO4 will have been earning previously. Plus later-on the R&R could be removed and then the ex MTO4 could be further "punished" by having the pension entitlement reduced further. What safeguards are there to prevent this scenario from occurring?

R&R premium may actually push those intending to stay in the NHS, until they retire, out of their jobs (the experienced and knowledegable ones in a position to train and support the younger trainees we want to come through the system), if R&R premiums are required there's a risk you could be significantly worse-off if you intend to retire after the R&R premia cease to apply. And don't say these "Oldies" will receive fantastic evaluations from AfC because it will depend on their job-description they have at the time of the evaluation i.e their current duties and responsibilities, not grade.

At the moment our trust is re-evaluating MTO4s and managers - this is unrelated to AfC, so we are told. Some will be "losers" in that they will have to be down-graded (with temporary, 5 year, pay-protection at current salary) at a lower grade than they're currently at. Come AfC how will the lesser-responsibilities (commensurate with the downgrade - to keep the unions happy) of the new MTO3 grade affect the downgraded MTO4's evaluation for AfC? How will the R&R premium be applied to a grade that has already had protection applied to it? e.g. if an MTO4 is downgraded to a MTO3, with pay protection for 5-years and then AfC comes along a year later and the salaries for the MTO3 job-description, that the MTO4 now has, are reduced - how will R&R be applied?

Just something for all of you (50-year olds+, especially) to think about. The potential knock-on effects of R&R need to be explored by the unions and members need to be protected. Anybody read anything or have any facts about this aspect of the R&R premium?

Good day chaps, chapesses & whinging old women (you know who you are)
So the gradings are out at last and it looks like we’ve come out of this rather well. I hope Dave didn’t spend too much time with auntie Stella Friday lunchtime!
Do the people evaluating jobs know what we really do? Think about your typical week, how much time is spent doing the hands-on technical work we are paid for. Come on let’s be honest, hand on heart!
How many repairs involve simply replacing a cable, cuff, battery or probe? The ‘supplying consumables’ aspect of our job is the equivalent to a storeman or porter.
PPM is basic & routine work. Anyone can plug equipment into an automatic tester, press go and register pass. (Let’s face it, how often do things fail.)
Our best hope of a higher grade is the complex and non-routine technical repairs we carry out. Oh dear, anything more than a fuse and it’s boxed up and sent back to the manufacturers.
So far we have only accounted for a fraction of our time. Let me put the kettle on again while I think what else we do….. Of course, it’s staring me in the face, the internet. What did we do with our time before the internet?

We can call ourselves technicians or technologists, pretend to be busy all the time, think we are important to patient care, but that doesn’t change what we really do. Let’s keep this secret between ourselves. We have been overpaid for years and will probably still be overpaid after AFC.

Happy Surfing

Dave H
Where did you get these details from

Max et al

I received them late friday from a colleague at another hospital, they received it from a biomed union source from another hospital.

I've confirmed with our local "guinea pig", sorry early implementer site that what is being put out seems to be true.

I believe the union guy was compiling views to take to a meeting this week.

I've got no problem faxing it to anyone interested or possibly to Huw and he can weave his web trickery.

Don't know when it will appear on the DoH site

As long as it's public domain - I'm happy to post it here.

Can you send me a copy?

*************************************************
The documents are available here -- 20Kb download (zipped)
*************************************************

Does anyone know what would be regarded as a Specialist Med Eng Tech??

Don’t know if this will help but I work in an American system. We are called Biomedical Engineering Specialists. Grades are generally BMES1 (=MTO4) and BMES2 (MTO to MTO3). I hold the title of Clinical Engineer, ??? and my Don is Chief Engineer.

S

Huw

Sent you an email with the files. As far as I know they are for public scrutiny, they seem to have done the rounds on the mailing lists I've seen.

Cor your fast Huw

Here they are for all to see.


*************************************************
The documents are available here -- 20Kb download (zipped)
*************************************************

H.