Consultation launched on revisions to national nursing job profiles
A consultation has been launched on draft changes to the national NHS job profiles for nursing and midwifery.
The NHS Staff Council’s job evaluation group (JEG) has this week opened the consultation on proposed revisions to the job evaluation matching profile for bands 4, 5 and 6.
The consultation will run from 29 April and closes at 7pm on 30 June 2024.
The NHS job evaluation scheme ensures that jobs that are advertised in the health service are matched to nationally evaluated profiles.
Job profiles are matched to job descriptions and other relevant information to determine a band outcome, including the skills and education required for different roles.
Nearly all NHS jobs match a profile, aside from a small number of unique, specialist jobs that will be decided by a local job evaluation panel.
If the person who holds the role is dissatisfied with the outcome of matching or evaluating, they can request a review within three months of the decision.
Following a request made by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) to the staff council, the NHS JEG is undertaking a review of the profiles for bands 4 and above.
The purpose of this review is to ensure that the national job profiles accurately reflect current nursing and midwifery practice, training and role development, and are fit for purpose across all health settings.
The proposed changes so far include additional wording in the relevant job information, including more current and accurate examples that reflect modern nursing and midwifery practice.
All amendments have been informed by the JEG’s extensive evidence gathering so far, which includes a nationwide survey, detailed analysis of job information, interviews and roundtable discussions.
Louise Chinnery, a national officer for Unison and staff-side chair for the JEG, said earlier this month that it was clear that many nurses were currently working above their pay grade.
She said: “What has been so evident in the evidence we’ve seen is that band 5 nurses are working above their band in a lot of areas, either because they’ve learned very specialist skills, or they’re taking charge of wards but not getting paid for it.
“So that’s going to be a really big opportunity for us,” she said during a session at Unison’s health conference, held in Brighton.
The JEG has invited detailed responses and additional evidence to its consultation, all of which it said will be used to confirm or further amend the draft profiles before publication.
The findings of the consultation will be reported back to the NHS Staff Council meeting in September.
While the consultation goes on, the JEG said it would continue work around nursing and midwifery profiles for bands 7 and above.
It said that those revisions would be consulted on later this year.
