Well, we seem to have been quite proactive as a department. Our department met with the head of HR in our current trust on Wednesday, and today we met with the hospital union rep.

It seems like there are three things going on almost at the same time that really have to happen in sequence to be legal. First of all we have to TUPE over to the new employer (with no other change to our role or contract) then there has to be negotiations to establish equality of terms of employment with new and old employees, and then there will be a process of organisational change to configure the new service structure. Each process is supposed to involve a formal consultation process, and protection to our existing job role, pay, and terms and conditions. Interestingly they can’t go into the former process with a predetermined outcome in mind for the latter process, as that would not involve the requisite level of consultation or openess to negotiation.

It seems like they will either have to offer us a continuation of our current posts at the same band and with the same remit, or offer redundancies, or offer a reconfiguration in which people are offered “suitable alternative” positions (which are supposed to retain the same status, and be within the skill set of the person involved) with a guarantee of no reduction in salary for a 3 year period (the length of this is dependent on length of continuous service, and in our trust is 3 years is for staff with more than 7 years continuous service like myself).

So, the union are very curious about how they can be saying that they are TUPEing me across, but that my post doesn’t exist unless the commissioners pay more for it (as TUPE has to be with the intention of the person continuing to do the same job). They are also surprised by the implicit threat that some people will lose their jobs, and a number of other places where the process has already deviated from the expected protocol.

There are also lots of issues about the time-scale of the change, and whether it will be possible to sort out payroll, transfer of patient records, etc legally within the time proposed. I can just imagine a worst case scenario in which from 1st October (a mere 6 weeks away) we have to get written consent from each service user to carry their records over to the new trust, and otherwise having to start new files with no history of our involvement and no access to our database…

Update: The union have put in a grievance and the new trust seem to have partially retracted their “non-negotiable” plans (though not in a legally binding way), but we are all set to transfer to the new employer on 1st October. So, I’m guessing the next few weeks will be critical in seeing whether they are going in with an attitude of prioritising the quality of the service we provide, or of saving costs.

The commissioners have agreed to pay more to ensure the survival of the projects outside of the core tender, which is good as it protects my post but bad as it means the two tenders were not considered on a like-for-like basis (as one included these projects, and the other is now being paid more for them, when it seemingly won the tender by being cheaper).

We’ve been told that the expectation is that all current employees will still have jobs within the service in a year from now (but with no guarantees about structure or grading).

So, its a bit of a watch this space. What I can say is that the process of change is disabling in itself. I don’t feel like I can plan ahead, and I feel too overwhelmed to be very productive. I also feel my loyalty to the service has been seriously undermined.