FCS Briefing: Overtime payments for Bands 8 & 9 during Covid-19 response

NHS Unions and NHS Employers agreement on overtime payments during the Covid-19 response

29 May 2020

• We are pleased that joint union negotiations with NHS employers have come to fruition

• This was a key point in the unions' Blueprint for return launched last week so good to get progress on it

• Employers and TUs both agree that implementation of such overtime arrangements at this time is warranted and necessary – to reward fairly the additional effort NHS staff have given to the pandemic response

• Many employers have already reached local agreements (and other countries already have parts or all of this agreement in place )

• Expectation that NHS employers in England will welcome this guidance on how they can negotiate and implement local measures and record these as part of the legitimate additional costs of responding to the pandemic (i.e the overtime payments will be at no extra costs to NHS Trusts).

• In agreeing local arrangements  we expect employers to work in partnership with TUs to protect the health, safety and well-being of their staff, to protect against staff working excess hours whilst still ensuring they are fairly rewarded for the additional work that they need to do.

The agreed guidance can be downloaded at:  https://www.nhsemployers.org/news/2020/05/nhs-staff-council-overtime-guidance

Members in bands 8 & 9 who have been doing additional hours to support the Covid-19 response should now be collecting together their evidenced, detailed  records of additional work done. The precise start date will be a matter for local agreement so for now go back to the beginning of your local action plan.

The unions are working on a template local agreement for distribution to your local negotiating machinery shortly.

M Cornes & G Lester

FCS