Overview
If you need to take leave you should make sure you notify the appropriate person with as much notice as possible, and make sure that your leave is logged accurately on WhosOff (for each leave type on this page we tell you what it’s named on WhosOff, should you need to use it).
Non-clinical staff should tell their Line Manager
A note about Bradford Factor
The Bradford Factor is a simple formula that allows us to assess number of unplanned absences (e.g. due to sickness, emergency time off for dependents, time off for appointments). This gives a ‘score’ for each person that tells us how much unplanned leave they have taken in the past 12 months.
A high Bradford Factor score (indicating that you took a lot of unplanned leave) may be cause for us to further investigate these absences and your performance.
📚 Study leave
Your study leave entitlement depends on your job role and whether you have agreed any training with us.
You can find out more about study leave on our Learning & Development page.
🩺 Time off for medical appointments
Whilst we hope our teams are able to stay fit and healthy, we know that sometimes you may be feeling unwell and might need time to attend medical appointments. If possible you should book appointments outside of working hours. If that’s not possible, please try to book appointments either at the start or end of your day to minimise disruption.
If you’ve been with us for over a year, you’re able to take time off for medical appointments as paid leave under our Company Sick Pay (CSP). If you’re not eligible for CSP and you need to go to an appointment during working hours, you will need to take unpaid leave or use your annual leave.
Eligible for CSP — ‘Med appointment’
Not eligible for CSP — ‘Absence from work - Un-paid Leave’ OR ‘Holiday / Vacation’
🗓️ Time off for other appointments
Any other type of appointment that is not a medical appointment should be taken outside of working hours where possible. If not possible, please try to book appointments either at the start or end of your day to minimise disruption. If you do need to go to an appointment during working hours, you will need to take unpaid leave or use your annual leave.
🫂 Carer’s leave
Carer’s leave is unpaid time off that can be used to provide or arrange care for a dependent (i.e. a partner, child, parent or or anyone else that relies on you to provide care) who has a long-term care need. A long-term care need may be a disability, reasons relating to old age, or an illness/injury that requires more than three months of care.
A maximum of one working week can be taken in a 12 month period (this is pro-rated for part-time staff). If you care for more than one dependent you can still only take one working week of carer’s leave, though this week can be used for multiple dependents.
Half a day is the minimum amount of time you can take in one go. At least three days notice, or double the amount of time you want to take off, should be given when requesting leave (e.g. if you are asking for four days off, you should give eight days notice). Please note that we may delay your leave for up to one month if your absence is likely to cause significant issues to the provision of service to our patients.
👶 Time off for dependents
Aka emergency leave. You can take unpaid time off to help a member of your immediate family or someone that relies on you when there are unexpected or urgent incidents. This includes unforeseen circumstances such as breakdown of childcare arrangements, or caring for someone that is ill or injured until other arrangements can be made for their care.
The amount of time you take off should be reasonable for you to deal with the immediate problem and make any longer term arrangements.
Please note, if you knowingly provide false information in relation to taking time off for dependents, this may be treated as a disciplinary matter.
👨👦 Parental leave
You’re entitled to take up to 4 working weeks of ordinary parental leave each year. The total amount of parental leave you can take is up to 18 working weeks for each child, up to their 18th birthday. Because parental leave applies to each child, not to an individual’s job, any leave taken in a previous job will be carried over.
You’re eligible to take parental leave if you’ve worked with us for 1 year or longer at the time when the request is made (not at the time when you intend to take leave).
Parental leave has to be taken in blocks of 1 working week at a time. We need at least 21 days notice before you intend to start this leave - once you know that you want to take parental leave, please let us know the start / end dates of when you intend to take this leave ASAP.
Please note that we may delay your leave if your absence is likely to cause significant issues to the provision of service to our patients.
More information can be found on the Gov.uk website.
🌸 Bereavement leave
We hope that you don’t have to use any bereavement leave during your time with us, but we understand that you might. We try to give careful and sympathetic consideration to all requests for time off in the case of a death or funeral.
You get full pay for up to 2 days per year if you do need to take any time off.
🧑⚖️ Jury service
You should tell the appropriate person ASAP if you receive a summons for jury service and need time off work, letting us know the dates you need to be in court.
Jury duty can be quite unpredictable in length, so it’s important to keep in touch with us on a regular basis (especially if it looks like you might be gone for significantly shorter / longer than expected).
You should return to work immediately after the end of your jury duties.
⛔ Unpaid leave
We try to avoid people taking unpaid leave to maintain good staffing levels. However, in some limited circumstances we might be able to grant some unpaid leave, e.g. time off for appointments, time off for dependents, parental leave. In any other circumstances, annual leave should be used before unpaid leave is used.