If anyone works in the nhs please can you shed any light on this holiday allowance?

Yes, that is often the case. It was certainly true at my last place of employment (an independent school). If an employee hadn't taken all their paid leave by the end of the leave year, they forfeited the remaining leave and then just started the next leave year with their usual annual allowance.
Surplus leave was not carried over by default. Requests for carry-forward were considered on a case by case basis, and if granted were limited to 5 days.

Yes he's being honest. He'll lose it and not be paid for it. They've also got very strict on carrying days to next year in my trust - they almost declined mine after Mat Leave as I'd built alot up!

It would depend on the policy but yes essentially. If you haven’t bothered to book any it’s your own fault and you’re breaching the policy. If you’ve repeatedly tried to book and repeatedly been refused across lots of different dates then mangers can approve a bit more to roll over but it’s rare that you would get refused all dates. Sometimes a manager will approve auto-assigning of leave if you haven’t booked any after being asked to and your rota will be adjusted to show you on leave and it’s tough if it’s not dates that work for you.
Anything else not booked or rolled over will be lost.

Different trusts have different rules

During Covid, people were so overworked, they weren't able to take all their annual leave and were allowed to roll or get paid a certain amount - I worked for a trust that allowed up to 10 days, but it wasn't automatic and you only had a brief window to apply for this

However, the general rule is no

No rollovers and no pay in lieu - this is supposed to encourage a 'healthy' work/life balance and the trusts doesn't have the unions on their backs over working time directives

I now work for a trust that will only allow up to 5 days rollover and that's only after applying for and being granted a rollover - it's not automatic and it can't keep happening from year to year

Every time that someone has leave from the previous year added onto their current year's allowance, they are putting an unfair burden on the rest of the team that has to cover their workload when their off

I carried over two days (counted as 15 hours) and it's caused no end of paper work

It varies from Trust to Trust. We can't carry over any annual leave, it's basically use it or lose it. In fact, we are even told how much leave we have to take each quarter.

My trust allows you to buy or sell a week. We have on occasion been allowed to carry over a few days to be used in the first month of the new year but only really if you had asked for leave and been denied. You can sell a week and then buy it back in the next year so essentially carry it over.

It's very much at managers discretion.
In our team can roll over 5 days, and be paid for anything over this, but only if have had requests for leave declined due to being short staffed.

Yup, it's use or lose!

He needs to check his Trust’s annual leave policy as it varies. In mine we can apply to sell or buy annual leave but have to do this by a certain point in the financial year. We can also carry over a max of five days.

If it helps I absolutely don't agree with this policy I had TWELVE different requests denied due to staff sickness then was told I would lose my remaining leave so had to take a few random days that I didn't want. The main bugbear of this is that had I gone off sick during the dates I requested I would have got the annual leave back & been allowed to carry the days over. So if he has had sickness during the year he might have a few days he is allowed to carry over.

It works same way in most private sector companies too, just not the one op worked for

I'm NHS.
Were not allowed to carry any leave over and we lose any we don't take. No money to pay us for what we don't take. HOWEVER it's very unlikely we wouldn't take it as it's strongly encouraged and were regularly reminded how much we have left

and quite alot of other companies dont either, seems its a perk with some more than others

I work in private sector and if we don’t take our leave by end of year we just lose it, don’t get paid for it. If he’s been denied leave when he requested though and not actually allowed to take the leave then he should take it up with the union. If he’s just not tried to book it then tough

Does it really surprise you that things work differently in the public and private sectors?

He is correct. Some trusts let you carry over 5 days but as a fellow unlikely as they are generally fixed term contracts.

To a certain extent he’s right, but it will depend on the Trust annual leave policy. In my Trust we have to have booked a certain percentage of leave by different points throughout the year and if you don’t you’re in breach of the policy and thus could lose some of your leave. Some can be rolled over but not much and it is at the discretion of your line manager. We also get an option to sell some of our leave back at times too.

I don’t work for the NHS but I do work in the public sector. If you didn’t take all your leave, you could - at your manager’s discretion - carry over up to 5 days. Anything over those 5 days and you lose it. You would absolutely NOT be paid the equivalent of what you lost.

The only time they pay you for leave not taken is if you are leaving, eg you have 3 days’ leave left to take, but you’re leaving so you get paid those 3 days.

Yes. I work NHS Scotland & we were told if we didn't use days we would lose them. It's at the managers discretion if they allow you to carry any over (mine doesn't) but I think if there are organisational reasons why you can't take your leave i.e. requests denied due to staffing they can make allowances. I would tell him to contact his union representative to find the best way forward.