NHS Redundancy Consultation Process and Timelines

Redundancy timelines are one of the most anxiety-inducing parts of this whole process, precisely because the clock genuinely matters — for your Trust's legal obligations, and for your own decisions about applying for other roles, requesting voluntary redundancy, or simply knowing how long you have before a final answer. This guide sets out the actual legal framework and typical practical timeline, and flags where the rules are shifting through 2026 and into 2027, rather than quoting a single figure that might already be out of date.

Individual vs collective consultation — two obligations, not one

It's easy to assume "consultation" is a single thing, but in a redundancy exercise affecting a meaningful number of NHS staff, two distinct legal obligations are usually running in parallel, and understanding which is which helps you know what to expect from each.

• • Individual consultation is about you specifically — why your role is affected, how you were pooled and scored if selection applies (see our companion guide on selection criteria and pooling), what alternative or redeployment options are being explored for you, and your own suggestions. This applies regardless of how many people are affected overall, even if only one role is at risk.
• • Collective consultation is a distinct statutory duty under section 188 TULRCA, owed to recognised trade unions or elected employee representatives (not to you individually), covering the redundancy proposal as a whole — the numbers involved, the reasons, the selection method being used across the board, and ways of avoiding, reducing or mitigating the redundancies collectively. This only becomes a legal requirement once the numbers threshold below is met.

Both should be happening together where the collective threshold is met — collective consultation doesn't replace your individual right to be consulted about your own situation, and vice versa. A process that only ever talks to your union about numbers, with no individual conversation about your own circumstances, is generally regarded as falling short.

The statutory minimum timelines

The legal trigger and minimum periods for collective consultation come from section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. Where an employer proposes to dismiss 20 or more employees as redundant at one establishment within a period of 90 days or less, the duty to consult collectively is triggered automatically — it isn't optional or something a Trust can choose to skip because it would rather move faster.

These are legal minimums, not targets — consultation has to begin "in good time" before the first dismissal, and a Trust proposing changes at this scale is also required to notify the Secretary of State using the prescribed HR1 form. Genuinely large-scale NHS reorganisations — trust mergers, major service reconfigurations, or NHS England/ICB restructuring exercises affecting significant numbers of staff — will usually meet this threshold and trigger the full collective consultation duty; a single ward closure or a small back-office restructure affecting a handful of posts typically won't, though individual consultation obligations still apply regardless of scale (see the FAQ below).

What "at risk" status actually means, and when it starts

Being told you're "at risk" is usually the first formal step you'll personally experience, and it typically coincides with the start of individual (and, where the threshold is met, collective) consultation. Being placed at risk means your role has been identified as potentially redundant — it is not itself a dismissal, and a meaningful proportion of staff placed at risk are ultimately redeployed into a different role rather than actually leaving. In practice, at-risk status usually brings with it: formal written notification, registration on your Trust's redeployment register, priority consideration for suitable vacancies elsewhere in the organisation (and often at neighbouring NHS employers), and the start of your individual consultation meetings. Our dedicated guide to the at-risk register and redeployment process covers exactly what happens during this period, including how long it typically lasts before a final decision.

What your Trust is legally required to consult ON

This is genuinely one of the most misunderstood parts of the whole process. Consultation is not a legal requirement simply to inform you, or your union, that redundancies are happening — it's a requirement to consult meaningfully, "with a view to reaching agreement," on specific things, while proposals are still genuinely capable of being changed:

• ✓ Ways of avoiding the proposed dismissals altogether — for example redeployment, retraining, recruitment freezes, or reducing reliance on agency and bank staff instead of substantive posts
• ✓ Ways of reducing the number of employees to be dismissed — such as voluntary redundancy or early retirement schemes offered before compulsory redundancy is used (see our companion guide comparing voluntary and compulsory redundancy)
• ✓ Ways of mitigating the consequences of the dismissals — for example enhanced notice, outplacement support, extended redeployment searches, or phased implementation

A consultation process that only ever explains a decision that's already fixed, without genuinely engaging on these three questions, risks falling short of what the law actually requires — regardless of how many meetings are held or how much paperwork is produced. If every conversation with your Trust feels like it's confirming, rather than discussing, these questions, that's specifically worth raising with your staff-side representative or union.

The role of staff-side and union representatives

Where collective consultation applies, your Trust is legally required to consult appropriate representatives — and under section 188B TULRCA, where an independent trade union is recognised for collective bargaining purposes covering the affected staff, it's the trade union's representatives who must be consulted, rather than a separately elected staff body, for those staff. In practice, most NHS Trusts have well-established recognition agreements with unions including Unison, the Royal College of Nursing, Unite, GMB and the BMA, and these union representatives (often called "staff-side" collectively when representing several unions together) sit on formal consultation and organisational change groups throughout the process — reviewing proposals, negotiating alternatives, and feeding back concerns raised by affected members.

This collective, organisational-level representation runs alongside, not instead of, your own personal right to bring a union representative or colleague to your individual consultation meetings. If you're a union member, your rep can tell you what's being discussed and negotiated at the collective level — which can be useful context for your own individual meetings — as well as representing you directly in those individual meetings themselves.

What's changing through 2026 and into 2027

Collective redundancy law is genuinely in a period of active change under the Employment Rights Act 2025/2026 reforms, and it's worth understanding what's already changed and what's still being worked out, rather than treating any single figure as fixed indefinitely.

The practical timeline, step by step

Putting the legal framework together, a typical larger-scale NHS redundancy exercise tends to move through a sequence something like this — though the exact length varies considerably by Trust and by the scale of the change:

Related guides and tools

This page explains the statutory consultation framework under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and the Employment Rights Act 1996, and common NHS practice, as FrontlinePay understands them, correct to the best of our knowledge as of September 2026. Collective redundancy law is actively changing through 2026 and into 2027; where a rule is still in transition, this page says so rather than quoting a single figure that may already be out of date by the time you read it. This is not legal advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice from your trade union, ACAS, or a specialist employment solicitor about your specific process. FrontlinePay is an independent site and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, NHS England, any NHS trust, ACAS, or any trade union.