UNISON Pennine Care Redundancy/At Risk guide

If you notified as being risk of redundancy the first thing you should do is notify your steward or the branch office so that we can allocate a rep.

The Trust will generally give you a minimum of 12 weeks on the redeployment register to look for suitable alternative employment. It is important to note that this is a minimum period. It can and has been extended in certain circumstances – such as when a suitable job is likely to become available soon after the 12 week period.

Suitable alternative employment is a legal term – ultimately whether something is suitable would be determined by an Employment Tribunal but there are certain considerations that are always made:- Grade, salary, seniority, location, hours are all things that would come into consideration. In terms of grade and salary as a general priciple something of the same grade or one grade lower (with some protection) may be considered suitable. In order to qualify for a redudnancy payment under the NHS scheme you need to show that you are being reasonable – that you are looking for jobs, properly considering available jobs and have a good justifiable reason for turning any offers down. If you are a permanent employee you may still be offered a temporary post. It is unlikely that it would be considered a suitable altenrtaive by the law – however it will preserve your employment and more time for you to look for a permanent job.  If you have a permanent job and accept a temporary post you will still have the same rights of employment as a permanent employee.

The Trust will register you with their Employment Bureau which is their system for looking for suitable posts for staff at risk. Over the last couple of years UNISON has worked hard with Pennine Care to find suitable alternative employment for a lot of UNISON members and generally they have a good record of mainintaining employment. You will be asked by the Employment Bureau to register with your dteails of jobs your have done and details such as hours you might consider, shift patterns, sites you would be able to work at. When you are at risk and looking for suitable alternative employment the principle is that you should be able to do the available job with a reasonable amount of training, it doesn’t have to be exactly the same as something that you have done before.

Each week while you are ‘at risk’ you will receive a bulletin of available jobs in the Trust. If you fancy having a closer look at any of them you should contact the Employment Bureau. In addition to this HR meet with a trade union rep each Friday to go through the list and see if vacancies can be matched to anyone currently on the at risk register. It is really important that we represent your interests at these meetings – so make sure you contact us to keep us up to date with your circumstances.

If you find a suitable job and there are no other applicants then you should be interviewed informally. If there is more than one candidate then the requirement to show a fair prcoess might mean that it is a little more formal.  You would have a trial period in the job so if it isnt suitable you will have an opportunity to say so. You might want to be proactive in discussing with HR and the manager whether a development plan could be put in place to enable you to fulfill the job description over a few months.

Redundancy Pay Calculations

For information on NHS redundancy and redundancy pay calculations, a useful resource to take a look at is the Redundancy FAQ on the NHS Employers Website. Please note however that some of the scenarios and factors discussed on this website may be affected by local Pennine Care policies and procedures, and so it is always worthwhile to speak to your UNISON representative if you are affected by any of the issues discussed in this guide.