Annual leave entitlement
The annual leave entitlement for a full-time resident doctor is as follows:
- On first appointment to the NHS: 27 days
- After five years’ completed NHS service: 32 days
Where your contract or placement is for less than 12 months, your leave entitlement is pro rata to the length of the contract or placement. Annual leave for LTFT trainees will also be pro-rata.
Principles
It is in the interest of your health and wellbeing and the continued safety of patients in your care, that you take your full annual leave entitlement. Both you and your employer and the doctor must make every effort to work together to ensure that the you are able to take the full annual leave entitlement.
Your employer should, where possible, respond positively to all leave requests, and should normally agree reasonable requests. You should provide your employer with a minimum of six weeks’ notice to take annual leave.
Leave for life changing events
The 2016 contract gives resident doctors the right to take annual leave for life changing events, if booked with at least 6 weeks’ notice, without needing to arrange a swap. The relevant paragraphs from the TCS are below.
If you submit your application with at least 6 weeks notice
Your employer is contractually obliged to automatically accept your request, and therefore you have a contractual right to take that time off work, regardless of whether the shifts in question attract any form of enhancement or additional allowance.
If you submit your application with less 6 weeks notice
As you have not met the contractually stipulations laid out within the paragraph under which you are asserting the need for life changing event leave, your employer is not contractually obliged to accept your leave request and can therefore choose to decline it if it so wishes. However, given the importance and nature of life changing events, we would expect employers to consider your request fairly and to try their utmost to facilitate your leave request.
Paragraph 16 of schedule 10 of the Doctors and dentists in training terms and conditions (England) 2016 says that leave for life changing events must be granted (so long as enough notice given):
16. Employers must allow annual leave to be taken when it has been requested for a life changing event, provided that the doctor has given notice to the employer in accordance with paragraph 14 of this Schedule.
However, we have heard from members that some employers believe that a resident doctor is obliged to arrange a swap to cover leave for life changing events, due to paragraph 10 of schedule 10. This makes reference to doctors being responsible for arranging a swap if they want to take leave from shifts that are paid enhanced rates/attract an allowance:
10. As leave is deducted from the rota before average hours are calculated for pay purposes, as set out in paragraph 14 of Schedule 4, leave may not be taken from shifts attracting an enhanced rate of pay or an allowance, as set out in Schedule 2 of these TCS. Where a doctor wishes to take leave when rostered for such a shift or duty, the doctor must arrange to swap the shift or duty with another doctor on the same rota. It is the doctor’s responsibility to arrange swaps. The employer will take all reasonable steps to facilitate the arrangement of the swap. However, the employer is not obliged to approve the leave request if the doctor does not make the necessary arrangements to cover the shift.
Paragraph 10 does not apply to leave for life changing events, as set out at paragraph 16.
Paragraph 16 specifically cites the other contractual requirements the doctor needs to fulfil to take life changing event leave, namely those laid out in paragraph 14 which requires the doctor to give the employer 6 weeks’ notice of the life changing event leave.
Paragraph 16 makes no reference to any other contractual requirements the doctor need meet to appropriately and contractually assert their right to have their leave automatically approved where it is for a life changing event.
Getting help
If you have a life changing event coming up, and are concerned that your employer may be interpreting the terms and conditions in such a way that they are likely to refuse your leave unless you have arranged a swap, please get in touch with us in advance for further advice and support.
Payment for annual leave and purchasing additional leave
Payment for annual leave is calculated based on what you would have earned had you been at work, as determined by your work schedule, and on any reference period that may be applied locally.
Some employers may offer a local scheme which allows staff to purchase additional annual leave. If your wish to take advantage of a local scheme, all additional leave must be considered by HEE (local office) and agreed on behalf of the postgraduate dean.
Sickness whilst on leave
If you become ill whilst on annual leave, you should immediately notify their employer in accordance with your employer’s procedures. Your annual leave will be suspended from the date you notify your employer as long as you can provide a medical certificate.
Fixed leave
Fixed leave is where leave is built into the construction of the rota with days or weeks blocked out for each doctor in advance. This practice is not permitted under the 2016 TCS.
Your rota should also not be so restrictive in its design to give the appearance of fixed leave being incorporated into the rota, where there is little or no flexibility over when leave can be taken.
Where possible, rosters should be designed to contain periods of at least two or three consecutive weeks without shifts attracting enhancements or allowances, to provide doctors with the opportunity to take longer periods of leave
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