Types of Leave

ACAS – Free employement Advice

Annual Leave

How much annual leave are you entitled to?

The annual leave entitlement for a full-time junior doctor:

  • 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.

Study Leave

Please see the links below for up to date guidance:

Study leave application flowchart: https://lasepgmdesupport.hee.nhs.uk/helpdesk/attachments/7037495944

Study Leave Guidance: https://lasepgmdesupport.hee.nhs.uk/support/home?studyleave

Link to find course codes: https://lasepgmdesupport.hee.nhs.uk/support/solutions/folders/7000047215

Exam Leave

Leave to take exams is usually counted as part of your Study Leave allowance. However, you can only take it as Study leave as dictated below…

– For the first attempt, leave is granted with pay and expenses.

– For subsequent attempts, leave is granted without pay and expenses.

– Provided educational approval is given, leave will be granted without funding.

– You are entitled to 5 days per year of personal study leave to prepare for an exam. This should come out of your study leave allowance.

Please keep a log

In addition to Annual and Study leave, you are allowed time off from the training programme for any of the types of leave mentioned below, in accordance with the contractual arrangements with your employer.  However, we would like to reiterate the fact that the total, aggregated allowance for the types of leave below must not exceed…

  • one week in any 6 month post or
  • two weeks in a 12 month training period or
  • six weeks over a 3-year training period

(Please note that one year would be a calendar year beginning from programme start date).

Please keep a log of all your leave throughout your 3 year training programme (sickness, parental, maternity and anything else). ‘The ES Workbook’ will help keep a tally of these for you.

Remember, informing the different stakeholders who need to know is the trainee’s responsibility. Failing to do this early on will mean that any gaps that need making up in your training programme will be picked up too late to do anything about and only you lose out. We do not want this to happen to you.

Sick Leave

If you need time off sick, there are 2 aspects you need to think about:

Your Employment

– You should contact your workplace immediately to let them know you can’t come to work. In GP this might be the Practice Manager or your Trainer, in hospital the Rota Coordinator, departmental secretary or your Clinical Supervisor.  Try to have a conversation or full message exchange – don’t just leave a message and hope it gets through. If you can give them an idea of how long you are likely to be off sick, this is helpful.

– You must send sick notes to the correct admin department in your employing organisation – if you don’t, you may not get paid on time.

Your Education

– If you are absent for more than two weeks in any one year for any kind of leave in addition to the study and annual leave allowance, that excess must be made up with additional training time at the end of your training programme.

– If you are absent for more than the two weeks allowance, please let the following people know:
1. Your scheme’s GP administrator
2. The Training Programme Directors
3. The Deanery