EBME Forums Forums Management Professional Issues Agenda For Change Changes to Agenda for Change

For those working in the NHS here are the proposed changes to the terms and conditions under Agenda for Change.
This is a proposal at the moment but...........

And for those not in the NHS if the pay and conditions go down inside will this be matched by an overall change to everyone as employers will not have to try as hard to attract people?

Robert

Heaven help those who don't have an annual PDR to demonstrate that they have the required skills and experience to progress through all the paybands (as specified in para7). At the moment we have gateways at 2 levels on each payband. The Manager has to close the gateway to stop progression at the moment. This will change apparently. It's now up to the employee to demonstrate his/her ability. That is my understanding of it.

So...

Every pay increment becomes a 'gateway'?

Also, there previously was a protection of sorts in that if an employee requested training courses, etc, in order to meet the requirements for the next gateway, but was not given them, they would progress anyway. Are we to assume that this no longer applies?

I'm also somewhat suspicious that 'workforce re-profiling' is just a euphemism for pay cuts and job losses.


And yes, I'm aware that this proposal is England only, but as with the pension scheme there is every chance the Scottish Government will be coerced into imposing the same changes.

Mike, the new proposals still have the clause where if you don't have a annual PDR you pass the gateway, same goes for denied training. It's more of a case of heaven help those who do. 100 - 1 most Trusts will see performance related pay as a way to stop paying increments and only the few will get it as compared to present case where you can count the number of people who don't pass a gateway on your hand! Therefore they'll be pushing annual PDR's more.

I don't see what is wrong with making sure people are performing before allowing progression to the next pay point.
I am sure that by rights, a few people ought to be progressing backwards back down the pay scales due to being bone idle.

How about, even if you are doing well and you do not get on with your boss, or the Trust you work for has to save money?
It is easy to make sure people do not pass up the pay structure.
And who do you complain to if you feel you are entitled to the pay rise? HR and whose side are they on as they too are subject to the same targets.
If people are performing badly there is a mechanism of discipline in place to deal with this - but most NHS employers do not seem to want to use it.
Robert

Especially in cases where there may be a danger of the "Race Card" being played.

You can see a mile off that some Trusts due to their financial difficulties will never pay the top three increments and it will just mean a lowering of the top of pay bands.

I can remember thinking all those years ago that the concept of the "internal market", and NHS Trusts, were just so much BS. To me it seemed like a dastardly plan to "spin off" acknowledged Centres of Excellence and/or hospitals in "up-market" parts of the country into "businesses" ... whilst effectively giving up on the rest.*

But I can also remember that quite a few of the younger, more "thrusting" (gushing?) folk around being seemingly very excited by the whole thing. Most of them moved on years ago, I should imagine (probably to become bankers).

OK ... now (twenty years later) that the Great Experiment has had time to either prove or disprove itself:- what's the verdict? Are Government health services in the UK any better now than they would have been had the "original NHS model" continued (muddled along) as before?

And what about the biomed services side of things? Better or worse? Or could it be another case of Divide and Rule?

For all their inefficiencies (real or imagined), I believe that in a nation (economy, whatever) on the scale of Britain, "utilities" are better held and run in Public (or to use that word from the past, "Nationalised") hands:- electricity, postal services, telecoms, the railways etc. ... and yes, the government hospital network.

But instead, what we have now is a miss-mash of fiefdoms dotted here and there - rather like medieval castles, in many ways - each seemingly a Law Unto Itself, with little if any strategic coherence to a unified system of healthcare on an equitable, national, scale. And of, course, no central engineering training organisation! Indeed, can we even call it a National Health Service any more?

* What's that phrase? Post Code lottery?

By the way, anyone interested in digging a little into the history of the NHS could do worse than start here.

But, as an aside ... I wonder how they got away with this name? It seems a bit "cheeky" to me.

I think I might set up my own hospital. Perhaps call it the "Northern Hospital Sheffield" I wonder what sort of logo I could use? A nice light blue lozenge with white Italic lettering would do it?