Your annual leave entitlement
All consultants in the UK engaged on the national terms and conditions are entitled to a standard of 6 weeks of annual leave. There are additions to this depending on which UK nation you are based.
England
If you are on the 2003 contract for England, and have been a consultant for 7 or more years, you are entitled to an additional 2 days.
In England there are an additional 8 days of public holiday plus 2 ‘statutory days’ (which most employers convert into between two and four days of annual leave).
Northern Ireland
If you are on the 2004 contract for Northern Ireland, and have been a consultant for seven or more years, you are entitled to an additional 2 days.
In Northern Ireland consultants are entitled to 10 public holidays and 2 'statutory days' which have been converted to annual leave by local agreement.
Wales
Consultants in Wales are entitled to 6 weeks and 4 days annual leave per year.
In Wales there are an additional 8 days of public holiday. Consultants who are required to be on call on a public holiday will be granted time off in lieu.
In some cases, employers may have a standard leave year, for example commencing on 1 April for all employees, and this should be clearly specified in the contract of employment for the post. Otherwise, each leave year will commence at their incremental date or its anniversary for those at the top of the scale.
Scotland
Until recently consultants were entitled to 10 public holidays. In 2021 the BMA reached agreement with the Scottish Government and NHS Employers to apply the substitution of two public holidays with three additional annual leave days on a permanent basis for all secondary care doctors.
Read: DL annual leave and public holiday entitlements
We are aware that some consultants may have their leave expressed in days rather than weeks in their contract; anyone in such a circumstance should take care to ensure that the number of days they have had allocated is correct.
Annual leave and variations in working patterns
Consultants generally do not work on a 0900-1700 Monday to Friday basis.
The variation in working patterns means that it is difficult to define a working 'week', and this may be more or less than five days.
Equally, many consultants may work a number of Programmed Activities (PAs) or sessions over a set cycle, which, although an average can be determined, makes it difficult to identify a standard week.
Complications may arise when working out how consultants who work anything other than a five-day week should take their annual leave.
For example, if a full-time consultant delivers their contractual commitment in three days of work, they would only have to take three days of leave to have a full week off.
However, a consultant in these circumstances could spend over 10 weeks away from the hospital if they were allocated 32 days leave per year, compared to their colleagues who spread their commitments over five days a week and would therefore need to take five days of leave to have a full week off.
No consultant should receive disproportionately more annual leave by virtue of working a compressed week. A simple way of addressing this is set out in Option 2 below.
All consultants on a full-time contract who have standard conditions of service have the same contractual entitlement to leave.
Consultants may be able to agree a local solution in order to ensure that annual leave is being taken equitably.
See below for an outline of a variety of methods for calculating leave in order to avoid any potential inequity in those circumstances where differing work patterns make leave calculations difficult.
Any arrangement should be agreed through the LNC.