Recognition for staff (including annual leave and pay)
We offer a competitive salary along with a range of extra benefits.
Enhanced pay is available for roles required to work during unsocial hours. Unsocial hours payments are for any work carried out between 8pm-6am Monday to Friday. It also includes all times on Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays.
Employees receive an annual leave entitlement of 27 days on at the start of their NHS service. This increases to 29 days after five years’ service and to 33 days after 10 years’ service. Bank Holiday days will be added onto to your yearly annual leave entitlement.
Joining us from another NHS organisation? Then your accrued annual leave entitlement will transfer with you to ESNEFT.
Employees are also able to buy some extra annual leave days.
Celebrating success
We celebrate our long service awards for colleagues with twenty to fifty years’ experience at our hospitals and in our community services.
Each alternate year we have our East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) Staff Awards. Sponsored by local stakeholders to celebrate the brilliant work colleagues and teams do every day.
Our Trust has commendation awards each month and the Greatix system to let colleagues know how appreciated they are. These awards are for when colleagues go above and beyond in their day-to-day work.
Our Trust Chair presents success and celebration stories every month at Public Board. The press and members of the public are welcome to attend.
Trust Board of Directors meetings – East Suffolk & North Essex NHS Foundation Trust
There is coverage for when staff are recognised for extraordinary work inside and outside of their working lives.
Discounts (including travel)
A large number of businesses offer discounts to NHS employees. Discounts are available from external companies like Blue Light Card (Opens in a new window) and Health Service Discounts (Opens in a new window)
We also offer a range of travel discounts for staff commuting to work:
- Free bicycle maintenance for NHS staff is available from a bike maintenance provider.
Contact the Travel Plan team for more information. - Or you can buy a new bike and receive a discount of up to 40% through our cycle to work scheme. For bikes costing under £1,000 this can be repaid over 12 months. With bikes costing over £1,000 it can be repaid over 24 months.
For more information visit the Cycle Scheme website (Opens in a new window) .
The employer code is c9d20. - Staff can use the Park & Ride services for free to get to and from work at Colchester and Ipswich hospitals. You will need to show your ID badge when you get on the bus.
- Colleagues can also get 50% off bus season tickets across Colchester and Ipswich.
Email the Travel plan team for details. - For train travel staff can get 10% discount off some season tickets and Flexi Seasons with Greater Anglia at both Colchester and Ipswich.
Visit the railplus Greater Anglia website for details (Opens in a new window) You will need to use your work email to register and log in.
More travel information is available on our New Starter pages.
Flexible working
Colleagues can discuss their work life balance and flexible working with their line manager. These discussions can also take place at an appraisal.
We have a range of options to help employees’ work life balance. This includes part-time working, annualised hours and term-time contracts. For longer periods away from work, career break schemes are available.
We also offer a range of leave options. These include maternity, family, and adoption leave. Each of these have extra enhancements to the statutory schemes.
Pensions
Staff are automatically enrolled onto the NHS pension scheme when they join the Trust. The scheme continues to be one of the most comprehensive available.
Everyone’s pension schemes and retirement plans are different based on their work history.
This is a starting point to help you understand the basics and where you can go for more support.
What is a pension scheme?
A pension scheme is a type of savings plan that helps you save for later in life.
It’s one of the best ways to steadily grow your money over time. That way when you reach retirement age you will have more money available when you no longer have a monthly income.
In the UK we have different types of pensions.
The state pension
This is the pension that you need to claim from the government when you reach State Pension age.
The most you can currently get from the State Pension is £221.20 per week, which works out to £11,502.00 per year. The most you can get is dependent on your individual working history and how many National Insurance (NI) contributions you’ve made in your working life.
There are currently (as of July 2024) two versions:
Basic state pension: This is for men born before 6 April 1951 and women born before 6 April 1953. The national insurance contribution requirements are on the national government website.
New state pension: This is for men born on or after 6 April 1951 and women born on or after 6 April 1953. You will also have to have ten qualifying years on your national insurance record to qualify.
What is an NHS pension?
People will have their own opinions on what is the best approach. This is an outline of what is on offer for staff based on your terms of service:
The 1995 scheme: What you will receive is based on your pay for the last three years of service and can be withdrawn when you reach sixty.
The 2008 scheme: What you will receive is based on the best three years of your pay for the last 10 years of your service and can be withdrawn when you reach sixty-five.
The 2015 scheme: What you will receive is based on an average of your years of service and can be withdrawn when you reach the national pensionable age.
What we offer at ESNEFT to support you with your pensions and retirement decisions
Our pensions team emphasises the importance of starting the discussions early as retiring is a long process. They also provide a helpdesk available to staff to arrange a 1:1 meeting if required for advice, guidance, and support with the process. We also provide specialist pension seminars.
Our ESNEFT process guide has a bitesize training programme that is available to our management team. It gives them the confidence and guidance in having pension conversations with colleagues.
Find out more about pensions on the official NHS pension web page (Opens in a new window).
Retirement
A staff member’s retirement discussion will always be held between the employee and their manager. The Employee Relations helpdesk is available for managers and employees. It is part of the manager’s responsibility to be prepared for these conversations taking place.
The retirement process has three options:
- A staff member can retire and end their career.
- A staff member can retire and return to work immediately and have no break in service. This will mean that they will have a 10% reduction of their pension pay.
- A staff member can take a two week break and then potentially return for a two-year fixed year period. Following this fixed term period continuing service can be reviewed.
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