Employment law

Abstract

This chapter gives an overview of employment law generally, together with an indication of particular conditions of employment affecting employees of the National Health Service specifically. More detail is included in what follows than was contained in previous editions of this work on the subject of health care services outside the public sector. Furthermore, while until April 1990 some substantial differences existed between certain aspects of employment law as affecting the National Health Service and health care agencies outside the service, in particular the parts of general employment legislation which did and which did not bind the Crown, the removal by section 60 of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 of Crown status for health authorities has largely removed those differences. Certain different, in the sense of extra, rights and entitlements in respect of non-medical health authority employees continue to apply on account of the implementation of Whitley Council agreements. These include, in particular, rights on redundancy and entitlements relating to the resolution and settlement of employment disputes. While NHS trusts are for most purposes independent of the general guidance operating across the rest of the National Health Service, at the time of going to press the experience has been that the trusts already established have found it at least temporarily convenient to operate the rights and entitlements applicable under Whitley Council agreements.