Employees for NHS England (NHSE) can request to retire, claim their pension and benefits, and then return to NHS employment. As part of the process of onboarding retire and return employees returning, Line Managers will act as the Recruiting Manager (RM) and will create a vacancy on Trac to enable the retire and return employee to be hired back into NHSE.
Authorisation and application
The ‘Creating a new vacancy in BSA Trac - authorisation guide’ should be used when the RM is creating a vacancy in Trac for retire and return. However, the following adjustments should be made:
Department
Select ‘03. NHSE - Retire & Return’
Please state the reason number for the fixed-term contract from the list below:
Enter ‘10. Approved flexible retirement request’
Advertising Scope
Select ‘Restricted’ (hidden link).
Once the vacancy has been authorised the NHS Business Services Authority (BSA) HR Shared Services (HRSS) Team will email the hidden link to the RM to pass onto the retire and return employee. Only people with the hidden link can access and apply for the vacancy; it is not advertised on any internal or external jobs boards.
Contract Type and Contract duration
Update with the information appropriate to the retire and return employee.
Role requirement
It is mandatory to add at least 1 role requirement to enable the vacancy to be submitted for authorisation. As retire and return vacancies bypass the shortlisting and interview stage, please enter a single role requirement e.g. N/A with a score of 1.
Salary Approval
Salaries above the bottom of the band can be approved without approval from NHSE HR and OD provided that the retire and return employee is being hired into the same role on the same salary, HRSS Administrators will check the two parameters using ESR.
Should the above parameters not be met HRSS will need to seek salary approval as per standard process.
What is the process once the employee has applied for a vacancy via a hidden link?
Once the employee has completed their application the HRSS team will move them directly to ‘interview: interview’ in Trac. The Lead Interviewer on the vacancy (recommended to be the RM) will then be required to input the offer details for the retire and return employee.
When the HRSS Team have received transactional Offer details they will move the employee to ‘Conditional: Offer’ and set up the pre-employment checks the employee is required to complete.
What Pre-employment checks are required for a retire and return employee?
All retire and return employees are required to complete these checks:
- ID (Identity)
- Right to Work (RTW)
The following checks are only required if the retire and return employee is changing roles:
- Qualifications (only if required by the job description)
- Occupation Health
If the employee is returning to the same role these checks are not required.
A professional registration check is required if the job description specifies.
Do retire and return employees need to be hired on a fixed term contract?
No, retire and return employee are not required to be hired on a fixed term contract.