This is the first article in a series of three looking at grading practice staff salaries.  What’s a job worth? I tend to adopt a simple approach to judging what salary a job is worth. My approach is partly based on knowledge of NHS grades and salaries, and partly based on common sense. The NHS…

Annual leave entitlement and bank holidays Looking at the leave entitlement data given on threads such as here on the Practice Index forum earlier this year, it seems that only 25% of practices offered 28 days’ leave including bank holidays. Some 28% offered 25 days plus bank holidays, and 22% offered 27 days plus bank…

Under the Equality Act 2010, an employee has the right to compare salaries with others to establish differences in pay Having worked in the general practice side of National Health Service administration, either in a local health organisation or in general practice since the mid 1960s, I’m used to seeing salary scales published annually. Prior…

As any new practice manager will soon discover, life is ruled by passwords. And obtaining a whole load of passwords to start working in a surgery can take a considerable amount of time. It’s not a five-minute job. Another problem is working remotely – say, from home – as many of the sites you might…

Having spent some time recently back in the driving seat, after a few years of being at home on the range, I realised that while the workload is changing all the time, the attitude of employers towards their staff and their practice managers hasn’t changed much at all. My concern has always been the salary…

Apart from wondering whether you should have taken on the job in the first place, what other factors should you consider on commencing your new role? This checklist is intended to help you through the quagmire of challenges you might face! Contract of employment: Have you received a formal, written job offer along with detailed…

Firstly, I should say that locums come in many forms, not just doctors. I’ve recently come across a locum practice manager, a locum nurse practitioner as well as a locum healthcare assistant, a locum pharmacist and even agency reception and secretarial staff, all of whom were highly skilled and beneficial to the practice. However, all…