Do Nurses Face A Lack Of Flexible Working Options When Returning From Maternity Leave?

“While it is great news that so many nurses return to work after maternity leave, we want to make sure they feel they can do so in a way that supports their health and wellbeing and allows them to maintain a good work-life balance.”

New research has shown that nurses and midwives returning to work after maternity leave do not all have access to the same flexibility of working as other staff members across the NHS.

Returning After Maternity Leave

The report, commissioned by of the National Institute for Health Research and undertaken by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), analysed NHS payroll records from England for the period between January 2014 and March 2020.

More than 66,000 nurses and midwives went on maternity leave at least once during this six-year timeframe.

For those nurses and midwives returning after maternity leave, part-time working was “the norm” for a majority of them. This, the report suggested, was indicative of the NHS “offering flexibility that is likely to contribute to high rates of retention after maternity leave”.

However, the report’s authors did qualify their comment.

Is The Offer Of Flexible Hours The Norm?

“We do, however, find substantial variation in contracted hours across NHS trusts and medical specialties, which may indicate that not all those returning from maternity leave have the same access to reduced hours contracts” they added.

While it is great news that so many nurses return to work after maternity leave, we want to make sure they feel they can do so in a way that supports their health and wellbeing and allows them to maintain a good work-life balance.

Do you agree that the ability for returning mothers to work flexible hours helps the NHS in its retention efforts? And if so, should efforts be made to ensure that flexible working is available to all staff, not just those coming back from maternity leave, in order that retention levels are improved more widely?

Does Flexibility Help With Retention?

Further analysis showed that, on average, nurses were only working around three-quarters (78%) of hours compared to the full-time equivalent a year after going on maternity leave.

The data also showed a marked disparity in the numbers of nurses who had returned to working full-time hours.

Over 70% of nurses were working full-time in some NHS Trusts, but other Trusts had fewer than 15% of nurses returning to full time hours in the first to third years after coming back from maternity leave.

“Understanding this variation is important when examining the impact of maternity on women’s careers, and the impact of flexible working policies on recruitment and retention, in order to ensure that NHS resources are deployed efficiently through good workforce planning,” the report stated.

Within the context of staff shortages, research economist and report co-author Isabel Stockton explained that there were two contrary considerations needing to be taken into account when it came to flexible working; the first being that flexible working could prove more attractive to those returning from maternity leave and consequently improve retention, and second, awareness of, and the need to compensate for the number of hours lost if those nurses who did return decided not to work full-time hours.

Getting The Numbers Right - Workforce Planning

Given the acute shortages of nurses at present, do you think the NHS can afford to potentially lose a substantial number of hours worked in the short-term by offering flexible working in the hope of aiding staff retention in the medium to longer term?

Report co-author Elaine Kelley said: “The NHS is good at retaining staff after they return from maternity leave, with the majority able to work part-time.

An NHS spokesperson says “while it is great news that so many nurses return to work after maternity leave, we want to make sure they feel they can do so in a way that supports their health and wellbeing and allows them to maintain a good work-life balance”.

“There is, however, a lot of variation across trusts in the number of weekly hours worked by those who have recently returned from maternity leave…Although this may partly reflect differences in staff preferences, it suggests the same levels of flexibility are not available to all,” she explained.

A Change In NHS Contractual Rights

In September 2021, changes were introduced giving NHS employees the contractual right to request flexible working from their first day of employment.

Should these changes mean that access to flexible working will become more uniform across the NHS, or will immediate staffing concerns mean that flexible working provision remains patchy for all nurses, not just those returning post-maternity?

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