Dental nurse dilemna

Toithfairy1

I work in a nhs/private dental practice as a dental nurse. As we have now been told that we can't see patients face to face only able to give advice by phone. Consequently we are overstaffed and have been told by the owner that we have to just work one day a week each, on a rota, and the rest of the week we must take off as holiday as he says the NHS won't let us be furloughed and have to sign up to be redeployed  or we won't be paid. 

Can we be forced to use all our holiday entitlement, and what happens if I run out of holiday entitlement, will I then not be paid?? Surely this can't be right, I feel as a profession we are being treated very badly 😢

sharpe106

If they want to to take holiday they need to give you twice as long notice as they want you to take. 
Redeployed to what?

General_Grant

Toithfairy1 said:

I work in a nhs/private dental practice as a dental nurse. As we have now been told that we can't see patients face to face only able to give advice by phone. Consequently we are overstaffed and have been told by the owner that we have to just work one day a week each, on a rota, and the rest of the week we must take off as holiday as he says the NHS won't let us be furloughed and have to sign up to be redeployed  or we won't be paid. 

Can we be forced to use all our holiday entitlement, and what happens if I run out of holiday entitlement, will I then not be paid?? Surely this can't be right, I feel as a profession we are being treated very badly 😢

So you are not directly employed by the NHS but by the dental practice.
How would the NHS even know you individual employees have been furloughed?
But the dental practice doesn't have to furlough you.  Are they suggesting they would make your jobs redundant?  What are their plans for when you have used all your holiday entitlement?

General_Grant

 Have you read information on the BSDHT website - http://www.bsdht.org.uk/COVID-19

emilyf11

Toithfairy1 said:

I work in a nhs/private dental practice as a dental nurse. As we have now been told that we can't see patients face to face only able to give advice by phone. Consequently we are overstaffed and have been told by the owner that we have to just work one day a week each, on a rota, and the rest of the week we must take off as holiday as he says the NHS won't let us be furloughed and have to sign up to be redeployed  or we won't be paid. 

Can we be forced to use all our holiday entitlement, and what happens if I run out of holiday entitlement, will I then not be paid?? Surely this can't be right, I feel as a profession we are being treated very badly 😢

I am a NHS dental practice manager and as far as I am aware all NHS dental contracts will be honoured throughout this crisis and as a result practice owners are expected to continue paying their staff their normal wages. As you work in a mixed private and NHS practice, as I understand it, the owner can furlough a percentage of the staff in keeping with that private percentage but otherwise they should be paying wages the same!? We are about 90% NHS and our practice has continued to pay all staff (9 girls) their full wage. We have however gone onto a staff rota, so everyone just works one day in three... 
like I said, as far as I am aware, all staff should remain being paid in order for the practice to get their NHS contract payments! If I were you I would speak to your practice manager or if that fails, contact NHS England about your issues. 

Hope this helps x