A round up of the latest HR and Employment Law updates and related stories.  

REVIEW STAFF PAYMENTS BEFORE NATIONAL LIVING WAGE BEGINS

As reported in our earlier blog of 27^th August 2015, the new minimum wage levels came into force at the beginning of October 2015.

However, with further increases due in the levels of wages Practice Managers now need to start to plan for a new compulsory rise which was announced in the summer budget in July 2015. The new increase is part of the government plan to “move from a low wage, high tax, high welfare society to a higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare society”.

With effect from the 6^th April 2016 the new mandatory National Living Wage premium will mean that workers aged 25 and above will be paid an hourly rate of £7.20. This is an hourly rise of £0.50 from the current national minimum wage.

However, the new National Living Wage shouldn’t be confused with the National Minimum Wage because the National Living Wage is set independently by the Living Wage Foundation as an hourly rate of pay calculated according to the basic costs of living in different areas of the UK. The National Living Wage will, therefore, be a costs-based bonus applied above the National Minimum Wage.

FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION – DUTY TO REPORT

Female genital mutilation (FGM) of any type is a crime under the Female Genital Mutilation Act (FGM) 2003. However, from the 31^st October 2015 the Serious Crime Act 2015 inserts a new section 5B into FGM, which makes a duty for the following individuals to report to the police:

• Regulated healthcare workers (so includes those regulated by the GMC, Nursing and Midwifery Council)
• Social care workers (regulated by the health and social care professions council or Care Council for Wales)
• Teachers (qualified or those employed to assist)

The duty to report to the police occurs if, during the course of their professional duties the regulated professional is:

• Informed by a girl aged under 18 that any act of FGM has been performed on her or
• Observes physical signs that any act of FGM has been performed on a girl under 18 and they have no reason to believe that this is necessary because of the girl’s mental or physical health or reasons connected to labour

This is a personal duty on the regulated individual and the only exception when they do not need to report is when an individual professional knows with complete certainty that another professional has already made the report to the police.

This change is important for surgery Practice Managers because there are fairly strict deadlines (reporting usually needs to be the next working day unless there are exceptional circumstances) so a robust reporting process is required, and also because this impacts on the usual patient confidentiality. Therefore, from a practice manager’s point of view there needs to be:

• A clearly defined reporting process which is circulated to all regulated individuals within the practice and
• Reviews/changes to any HR policy which deals with patient confidentiality because this type of mandatory reporting duty will not be a breach of the usual patient confidentiality which would otherwise apply

Those wishing to become better informed about the legislation can access the Act in PDF form here.

POTENTIAL CHANGES TO SHARED PARENTAL LEAVE

As part of the governments’ continuing commitment to family friendly policies it has announced plans to consider increasing the Shared Parental Leave so that working Grandparents will be eligible from 2018.

With the forecast that we will generally continue to work beyond the previous retirement age you may wish to follow the consultation process which begins early next year.

For more about the current status of Shared Parental Leave please visit our earlier blog here.