'Chaos and confusion' as Nottingham hospital staff told to give overpaid wages back

Nottingham hospital employees have described 'chaos and confusion' amid significant issues with pay which have seen some people paid twice. The Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUH) has confirmed that it is now trying to get money back from several employees after many of them were overpaid.

Several NUH employees have been in touch with NottinghamshireLive about the issues, also said to include some employees on maternity leave not being paid. The issues come after NUH outsourced its payroll services to NHS Shared Business Services (SBS), a joint venture between the NHS and the French IT firm Sopra Steria.

Although SBS says it has a 99.8% accuracy rate in the payslips it handles for thousands of NHS employees around the country, one longstanding NUH worker has described the recent issues as "disgusting". Problems first came to light when payslips handled by SBS landed for the first time in October.

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That coincided with employees receiving a 5.5% pay increase backdated to April, with the government having announced the increased pay award for NHS staff in the summer. Alongside the payroll issues, some say there has also been confusion about the pension bracket changes resulting from the backdated pay.

One NUH employee said: "This was a huge mistake because of the timing. If we're going to get a load of backdated pay, that is not a good time to start outsourcing payroll.

"There's just a lot of chaos and confusion. I've worked at the trust for 15 years and I've never looked at jobs outside of the trust before, because I'm Nottingham born and bred. For the first time, I have now started looking at jobs elsewhere because of this."

Speaking about the issue with maternity pay, which is understood to have affected a smaller group of people compared to the overpayment issue, the employee added: "There are new mothers who are really struggling because of this. To cause this much disruption this close to Christmas is disgusting really, people are already worried about how they're going to buy presents and pay for their energy bills."

One NUH employee says those who have been overpaid have been told that money needs to be handed back by Friday (November 29). Paul Matthew, chief financial officer at NUH, said: "Unfortunately, an error has led to some colleagues in the estates and facilities team receiving an additional payment in their November pay.

"Where an overpayment is made, we have a duty to ensure that the money is returned. We are in contact with those colleagues affected to arrange for this additional payment to be returned in line with trust policy.

"A number of colleagues have already returned the money and we are grateful for their cooperation. We will continue to support those colleagues who need our advice and help.

"We apologise for this mistake and for the inconvenience caused." A spokeswoman for NHS Shared Business Services said: "We are a proud member of the NHS family and partnered with Nottingham University Hospitals trust to support the modernisation of their back office.

"Our payroll services nationally are more than 99.8% accurate and the vast majority of NUH's 23,000 employees have been paid correctly. We do appreciate that a minority of staff have experienced issues and acknowledge the impact this has had on them.

"We are working very hard, in partnership with our trust colleagues, to make sure these are put right as soon as possible, whilst recognising that some of them – for example, around banding – are national NHS changes, and we need to ensure the trust is compliant with the changes that have been brought in.

"At all times we have actively communicated with employees to provide support and reassurance, whilst also increasing the capacity of our payroll team to help resolve employees' queries swiftly and prioritising the support we give to the trust to ensure that its payroll service is as efficient and effective as possible."