FAQs

The SSC is strategically managed by a committee of members. The SSC is operationally managed by the SSC Manager with the support of the SSC Administrator.

Our Constitution
Operations Policy

The Committee have agreed and will annually review a sliding scale which determines the amount of discount given. The current sliding scale is outlined below:

• £0 to £99 = 50% on 1 ticket, 10% on 2 tickets
• £100 to £199 = 40% on 1 ticket, 10% on 1 ticket
• £200 to £299 = 30% on 1 ticket with no additional ticket discounted
• £300 to £499 = 20% on 1 ticket with no additional ticket discounted
• £500+ = Will be discussed individually, and the Committee would be required to make a decision.

On an ad hoc basis, the committee will increase the amount of discount for social member events such as pub quiz, summer/Christmas party etc.

Membership of the SSC is exclusive to staff who meet any of the following criteria:

• • Paid substantive employee of The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – via salary deduction

• • Non-Executive Directors of The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – via salary deduction

• • Fixed term employees of The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – via salary deduction

• • Staff Bank employees of The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – via the Trust’s secure Pay360 system over the phone with SSC

• • Locum employees of The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – via the Trust’s secure Pay360 system over the phone with SSC

• • Employees seconded into or out of The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – via salary deduction

• • Employees who are paid directly by The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust but salary is funded elsewhere – via salary deduction

In simple terms, anyone who receives a salary directly from The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and are therefore registered on ESR, are eligible to join.

As a member of the Staff Social Club, you get:

• • Access to a monthly lottery with £6,000 given away each month including our ‘January Jackpot’ and advent calendar
  • The opportunity to apply for subsidised events such as theatre tickets, hotel stays, social parties, day trips and much more with up to 50% off!
  • Ability to join the Freeman and RVI Fitness Centres for £10 per month

It costs £2 per month to join the Staff Social Club, or £12 to join the Staff Social Club and the Fitness Centre.

You can then add up to 12 entries in to the SMILE lottery for 50p per entry. Or you can opt out of the lottery draw and still pay the standard £2 per month fee.

Our fees changed to the above in April 2024. For more information on the fee change, please click here.

For nearly all our members we take the money straight from your pay. If, for any reason, we cannot do this but the staff member is on ESR, there are other payment options available. You can pay via the Trust’s secure Pay360 system over the phone with SSC. Please contact us directly if you would like more information via [email protected].

Unfortunately not, the £2 is your membership fee. You can however opt out of the lottery by ticking the relevant box on the form. If you wish to opt out at any point during your membership, you can send a request directly to [email protected].

As the Fitness Centres are funded and run by the Staff Social Club and its members, you cannot join unless you are also a member of the Staff Social Club.

Unless they are members of staff themselves, unfortunately not.

The money raised is used for the benefit of members. Proceeds will be put towards lottery prizes, staff facilities, amenities, and events.

You can cancel at any time however, please be aware that membership to the Staff Social Club is expected to be for a minimum of 12 months and membership to the Fitness Centres is expected to be for a minimum of 3 months.

If you return your cancelation form after the 6th of the month your final payment will be deducted from your following salary.

To cancel, please email [email protected] to request a cancellation form. This must be completed and returned before we are able to cancel your membership.

If you now have a substantive post, you must contact us via email to change your membership over to the substantive post’s assignment number. This is to ensure that payments can be taken correctly. Each month when payments are reconciled, we check to ensure that your payment has been taken. If you have failed to inform us of this change, we will change on your behalf and double deduct the following payroll.

You may receive an email to say your membership has been cancelled after we have completed our membership checks, this may occur if for example if you have retired and returned or if you have gone on maternity or adoption leave. If this happens or if you have previously been a member and would like to re-join please email us at [email protected], you will be required to complete and return an application form and we can then re-activate your membership.

If you will be taking a long period of absence from work for maternity/adoption leave, career break etc. we will be notified via ESR when you status updates and your membership may be cancelled automatically. Then if you would like to re-activate your membership upon your return your will need to contact us at [email protected] to complete an up to date application form.

If you are on maternity/adoption leave your membership may stay active while you are being paid. If a payment bounces we will contact you after we have completed our payroll reconciliations to inform you.

The SMILE Lottery is drawn on the 10th of each month and includes all members who have paid membership fees in the salary of the previous month. For example, a lottery draw that took place on 10th February would include everyone who paid in their end of January salaries.

All winners are contacted via email and the results are posted under the SMILE lottery section of the website.

There is a monthly cash prize draw consisting of 36 prizes. Currently you can win the below:

• £1,250
• £1,000
• £750
• £500
• £250 x 2
• £150 x 4
• £100 x 7
• £50 x 9
• £25 x 10

We also run an annual ‘January Jackpot‘ draw, as well as our advent calendar.

Should the lottery income increase or decrease significantly, we will amend prizes accordingly to ensure we are operating within the regulations set by the Gambling Commission.

You most certainly can. You can have a maximum of 12 entries per month. Each extra entry is 50p per number and must be bought in multiples of 2. Therefore, you can have either 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 entries in the lottery.

On the 10th of the month the lottery is drawn or the following working day if this falls on a weekend of bank holiday. Winning numbers will be selected at random by the Staff Social Club database system. The SSC Treasurer and a member of the fraud team will complete random audits. In instances that we advertise a ‘January Jackpot’, two separate draws are ran. This means that everyone is entered into both draws and it is possible for the same person to win a prize in each.

It is the Staff Members Internal Lottery Enterprise, a computerised staff lottery scheme.

Each of our events have its own release date and specified time. It is from this date and time that tickets are able to be purchased.

On the date and time specified, the website will be updated with links to apply. You will need to click on the event you want to apply for, and then you will see two buttons, a “Home booking form” button and an “At work booking link”

If you are at work, you need to apply via the “At work booking link” button. This will take you to our online booking system and this is the quickest way to book tickets or places for an event. If you are working at home and have access to the Trust network, you also need to apply via the “At work booking link” button.

If you are at home and do not have access to the Trusts network, you need to apply using the “At home booking form” button. To do this you can get to our website by following a link from one of our emails or Googling “Flourish Newcastle Hospitals” at the time of release you will then be able to download the Word document form by clicking the “At home booking form” button. You will need access to Microsoft Word on your laptop or device to allow you to complete the form. Please make sure your device is compatible with Word before trying to book. Once all sections are complete, you need to send it back to us ([email protected]), from your personal email address which is registered on your account. Your personal email address must be registered on your account with us before sending. You can register by emailing us from your work email address, confirming your payroll number and personal email address you would like to register.

Any applications which have information missing from the form will not be processed. We will aim to contact people where we cannot process forms however, this may be some time after the event release due to the volumes and therefore, you may miss out on places.

Applications are processed on a first come first served basis to ensure that ticket allocation is fair for everyone. You will then be informed, usually within, 5 working days whether you have been successful in gaining tickets or not. If we take a bit longer, it’s usually because we are trying to purchase more tickets so that more members are successful.

Unfortunately, as the tickets are allocated on a first come first served basis, you are not able to apply before and due to us needing written authorisation for us to deduct from your salary, telephone bookings are also not permitted.

If you have been successful, you will be given a date that you can collect your tickets from.

If you are not paid directly via the Trust and so pay for your membership via direct debit or Pay360 you will need to use the at home booking form when applying for events. Please see the above question for more details on how to do this.

As you do not pay for your membership via your salary we are unable to deduct event payments from your salary as well. In order to pay for your confirmed event bookings you can use the following process to make safe, secure payments online:

1. Please click the following link: Secure online payments – Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (newcastle-hospitals.nhs.uk) <https://www.newcastle-hospitals.nhs.uk/information-for-all-patients-visitors/online-payments/>
2. Select “any other payments”
3. Find and select “Staff Social Club”
4. Then select “Staff Social Club Events”
5. Enter your information and make the payment
6. You should then receive a receipt and SSC will be notified of your payment. We will then mark this as paid on your account and email you to confirm this

If you have any issues please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at [email protected]

We do not send out an email when the event has been released to book however we do advertise the release date on the website well in advance. We also have a ‘Save the date’ link on each event which will add the release date to your calendar.

You cannot send an electronically filled in form for one of your friends or colleagues. If someone wants you to send a form via email on their behalf, they will need to fill in the form via hand, sign it and then you can send a scanned copy from your email. Please remember that signing a form on someone else’s behalf is considered to be fraudulent.

Yes, tickets are allocated on a first come first served basis. However, we hold 10% of tickets for postal entries. These 10% postal entries are only for people who do not have access to a PC. If we do not receive applications for these 5 working days after the release, they will then be released back into the pot for electronic applications.

Please ensure that all sections of the application form marked with a * are filled in otherwise your application cannot be uploaded into the system and this may effect your application time/place on the system.

You will find out whether you were successful or not within 5 office working days from the date of your application.

If you are off work on the day of release, you can apply from home. To be able to do this just send us your home email address from your work email address so that we can verify it’s yours and then we can accept applications from home. This must be done no later than 24 hours before the event release. Then to apply from home you will need to visit our website as usual. You can find our website by searching for “Flourish Newcastle Hospitals” on Google.  Then head to our events and select the one you would like to apply for at the time of release. There will then be 2 buttons, one to use if you are applying from home and one to use if you are applying from work. When you select the “At home booking form” button this will then download a Word document application to your device. you need to complete this then email it back to us at [email protected] from your personal email address. Please note you will need to make sure the device you are applying from is compatible with Microsoft Word, please check this before you try to apply for an event.

If you are all members and all want the cheapest member price ticket then yes, we will need each of you to send in your own application. On the application form, each of you should fill in the group bookings section with the other people you want to sit next to, to ensure that we allocate your seats appropriately, should you be successful in gaining tickets.

If only part of the group has been successful in gaining tickets, we will contact you all to check whether you would still like the tickets.

If only part of the group has been successful in gaining tickets, we will contact you all to check whether you would still like the tickets for the people who have been successful. Should you not want the tickets we will reallocate them to the next people in line for tickets.

Yes. Anyone who applied for an event and was not successful will be added to a waitlist. Should someone no longer want their tickets they will be offered to the next in line applicant.

Yes, you can depending on how much the total cost of your tickets will be. The Committee have agreed, and will annually review, a sliding scale which determines the number of months you can split payments over. The current sliding scale is outlined below:

• £0 to £99 – 1 month’s salary
• £100 to £199 – 2 month’s salary
• £200 to £299 – 3 month’s salary
• £300 to £499 – 4 month’s salary
• £500+ – Will be discussed individually, and the Committee would be required to make a decision.

Please note that you must not share your username and password for the computer to allow people to apply on your behalf as this breaches the Trust IT Security policy, and could result in formal action being taken. If you are sending a postal application on behalf of another member, please remember that they must have filled it in and signed it themselves. You must not sign their signature as this would be considered to be fraudulent.

Following a 6 month pilot of new collection days/times at the RVI & Freeman, we have made the operational decision to not continue with physical collections.

Our final collection dates were Monday 11th & Tuesday 12th December 2023.

Feedback from members has highlighted that staff often struggle to take time out for collections, especially when based on wards and theatres, due to work/staffing pressures and shift patterns.

Almost all of our suppliers tickets/vouchers are now electronic meaning we are able to distribute to members via NHS emails, eliminating the need for physical collection. The primary aim of this change is to make members receiving their vouchers quicker and easier.

On the very rare occasion that we do have physical tickets/vouchers for an event, collection will still be available from Regent Point, or alternatively we will be offering discounted recorded postage.

Should you have any questions about this change, or wish to offer your feedback please email [email protected].

If you are successful for an event, you will receive a confirmation email which will confirm a date in which you will receive your electronic tickets/vouchers by.

On some occasions there may be a small delay due to our suppliers or staffing, however if there are any delays we will email members with a new revised date. If you have not received them by this date please allow another 2 working days and then contact us at [email protected].

If you can no longer attend an event, in the first instance, please contact the Staff Social Club. If it is more than 28 days to the event, we will try and reallocate your ticket and if successful we will provide you with a full refund.

If we are not able to reallocate your ticket, you are then able to resell privately as long as not for a profit. Please discuss this with us as some events we may need the details of the person you have sold them to.

If it is less than 28 days to the event, we will not be able to reallocate your place and you will be responsible for the cost of the ticket/event.

If you are wishing to cancel a voucher, this will need to be done within 28 days of receiving your confirmation email.