EBME Forums Forums Management Professional Issues Agenda For Change Curious is AFC a step forward?

As far as I am aware there is no facility in AFC for starting above the bottom point, thanks mostly to the KSF.

However, there have been many discussions over the last year or so about whether ANY incremental pay system meets age discrimination criteria. As far as the latter is concerned if you have the skills you should get the pay, age and length of service shouldn't have an effect.

If you have and can show the skills for the full KSF profile, in theory, you should be paid at the full profile spine point, (3 from top), or risk an age discrimination claim. The counter to this (which has not, afaik, been tested in law) is that, as everyone has to start at point one, it is not discriminatory.

Conclusion : Anyone's guess what the situation is until it goes to court

I suppose the "joke" is against me, as when I left the NHS I was at the top of the scale of an MTO3, so going back for less than what I left on is too painful an option.

Regardless of the experience I have gained in Private employment since, the obvious choice is stay out!

Hence my original query, AFC is not a step forward at all. At least not for me, and any chance of re-enetering the NHS at a similar level to which I left. I suppose the obvious answer to to step up my game and that of the levels which I can reasonably expect to be considered for?

Thanks for all the on topic replies. I have learned a lot thanks.

Paul, looking at the AFC handbook it states that the second gateway is fixed depending on band but the first gateway occurs twelve months after you start depending on which point you start on. It could be that this was just for the transition period, but it certainly seems that there's clauses there to permit starting above the bottom point.

The problem I see with AFC is that it wasn't really designed for anything other than the nursing profession. When you try to apply it to anything else you just get a complete mess! It seem that everybody isn't singing from the same hymn sheet and implementation of AFC to ebme jobs differs slightly between trusts.

Ps. Mark if the experience you've gained in private sector was relivant to NHS work I can't see you'd be disadvantaged. That is unless your original MTO3 post had been rebanded lower on the new band and if you'd stayed in the NHS you'd have been on protected pay.

Previous NHS work would definitely count towards annual leave entitlement (and relevant outside work may too at employers discretion). It could also be used as a reason to start above the base point i.e. HR could treat the break in service as a career break and start you at the same pay point you left at.

AFC is just a tool that can be used by cynical managers to pay the smallest salary possible. The idea that it was introduced to ensure that people doing similar jobs received the same pay is baloney. Two people apply for the same job one guy straight out of college with just a piece of paper stating his ability and then someone with Mark E's experience and we are to believe that the trusts are constrained to offer both candidates the same starting wage is laughable. The NHS will end up losing the ability to recruit experienced staff. How many more AFC rabbits will be brought out of the hat the latest is the reduction in the unsociable hours payments. The unions should hang their heads in shame for recommending their members to vote in favour of this.

For nursing posts that AFC was designed for it probably does ensure that people doing similar jobs receive the same pay. Although nursing staff should really have waited for the small print to have come through instead of voting for it on the back of a promise that they would be better off under AFC. Given the proportion of the other unions, once Unison had voted AFC was a done deal.

For other posts it certainly doesn't, there doesn't seem to be any consensus on what band people start off on, what profile were used in the original matching or what someone on each band actually does!

I'm appalled that there has been absolutely no media attention given to the fact that many NHS staff have been given huge pay cuts under AFC. If you open any newspaper you can read about how doctors and nurses have to put up with pay rises slightly below inflation, but there is never any mention of all the backstage staff such as ourselves who have actually had their pay slashed enormously, as I gather from reading this forum.

This is how I'd see it, no matter where you gained the knowledge if you can demonstrate you have it and you meet the full KSF profile you should get this pay point.

I think with clinical engineering it is possible to gain at least some of the knowledge and skills required outside of the NHS and the specific clinical engineering/EBME environment. Only recruiting onto the bottom of pay bands would limit the chances of recruiting useful employees who have a broader work experience than just NHS.

Exactly ... because they are doctors and nurses. Get real, Mate! How come that agencies can generate fees of £ 60 an hour for a SCBU "Bank Nurse", but only £ 20 an hour for an experienced stand-in biomed tech? Why are regular in-house biomeds (the few) paid less than nurses (the many)? You tell me, Mr. Panander.

Not sure of your point, Geoff. All of us in the NHS are aware that medical and nursing staff will have far more public sympathy than staff groups which most people have never heard of. The "few v many" (union power) point you make is relevant as well. However, this doesn't explain what seems to be a media blackout.

We pay £20 an hour for agency techs as well, but I didn't realise bank nurses cost £60. What cut do they get, I wonder? Here, we're actually slightly better paid than the nurses - we're all bands 6 or 7. Many of our nurses are band 5. But I realise this isn't the case all around the country (which was part of my original point).