NHS: Holiday Leave

(asked on 25th June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to Government guidance entitled Holiday entitlement and pay during coronavirus (COVID-19), published 13 May 2020, whether non-medical NHS staff will be able to carry forward their annual leave entitlements for up to two years in line with their front line colleagues.


Answered by
Paul Scully Portrait
Paul Scully
This question was answered on 2nd July 2020

Any individual who is a worker under the Working Time Regulations 1998 is entitled to 5.6 weeks of statutory annual leave. 1.6 weeks of this annual leave can be carried forward into the next leave year if provided for in a binding written agreement between the worker and their employer.

The Working Time (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 provide for the remaining four weeks of annual leave to be carried into the following two leave years if, due to the effects of coronavirus, it is not reasonably practicable for a worker to take this leave in the year to which it relates. This applies to all workers who are unable to take their annual leave due to the coronavirus, including non-medical NHS staff.

It is a matter for individual employers and their workers to consider whether it is possible to facilitate a worker taking annual leave. In these unprecedented times, the Government urges employers to carefully consider the guidance and the welfare of their workforce.

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