- Conference
- 2025 National Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 6 December 2024
- Decision
- Carried
This conference notes with concern that some NHS employers are not allowing employees to accrue bank holiday whilst off sick in their local policies.
Some NHS employers are deducting hours for sickness from rolled up annual leave for bank holidays for employees who would not normally be rostered to work on a particular bank holiday. For example, a part time worker is being deducted 7.5 hours for being sick on a bank holiday Monday even if their normal working pattern is Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Conference understands that this is because some employers are incorrectly applying this clause in NHS terms and conditions to these situations. Employees will not be entitled to an additional day off if sick on a statutory holiday.
Whereas conference interprets clause 14.9 as meaning that employees who would normally work a bank holiday and have used some bank holiday leave entitlement to cover that day off, do not then get an ‘additional day’ off for being sick on this day. But it does not apply to workers who are not scheduled to work a bank holiday because they have not used leave to cover that day and so would not in fact be taking an ‘additional day’ off in still being able to take that leave on a later date.
This conference resolves that we should aim for there to be a common understanding on these issues across the NHS and so instructs the Health Group Executive to seek agreement via the NHS Staff Council to get a clarification written into the NHS terms and conditions handbook on these matters, with the objective to ensure that:
o NHS employees continue to accrue bank holiday leave whilst off sick.
o Clause 14.9 does not apply to situations where an employee’s normal working pattern means that they do not work on a bank holiday and in those circumstances these employees retain the right to their pro rata bank holiday entitlement for that day in their rolled-up leave entitlement.