Study leave entitlement

Study Leave is pro-rata, so over the duration of training all resident doctors have equal access to study leave. From FY2, full time doctors can take 30 days per year, so a 70% LTFT should have 21 days. In Scotland you need to use study leave days from your allowance for mandatory training days. Full time doctors can use up to 5 days of their study leave for private study before an exam. This is discretionary, so LTFT doctors should discuss with their TPD how much study leave they can take for private study.

Days in lieu for study leave

Like your full time colleague, if you take a day of study leave on a non-working day, you are entitled to a day in lieu. This is best discussed with your rota master in advance of the intended day of study leave.

Study leave budget

The study leave budget is decided by your TPD. There is no absolute requirement for this to be reduced pro-rata for LTFT resident doctors, but in practice, many TPD's will elect to do this. It is always worth putting requests in though, because any surplus at the end of the financial year may be allocated to those who have already used up their study leave budget.

Annual Leave (AL) and Public Holidays (PH)

You are entitled to a pro-rata number of days of annual leave and public holidays. Your annual leave allowance changes at 5 years (calendar, not whole time equivalent) of NHS Service. AL entitlement for full time doctors with less than 5 years of NHS service is 28 days, for those with more than 5 years of NHS Service it is 33 days. Full time doctors are entitled to 8 public holiday days.

The easiest way to calculate your combined AL/PH allowance is to work out the AL you are entitled to (e.g. LTFT 80% who has more than five years experience at NHS Lothian is entitled to 0.8*33 days = 26.4 days) and add that to the number of public holidays you are entitled to (in which case 0.8*8) and round to the nearest half day.

This gives you a 'pot' of combined AL/PH to take. You do not need to take any kind of leave for a day you do not normally work. E.g. if Christmas fell on a Wednesday and you do not work a Wednesday, then you do not need to use your AL/PH allowance. If you get a bank holiday off and it is a day you usually work, then you are 'spending' a day of leave from your pot. To take one week of annual leave, you only need to take the number of days leave you would usually work - e.g. for an 80% LTFT resident doctor, you only need to take 4 days of leave for a whole week off.

This is of particular relevance to those who work (or do not work) Mondays and Friday. If a PH falls on a day you usually work and you are given it off, this will count towards your AL/PH allowance.