To not answer my phone when I’m annual leave?

[Elsiebear90]

I work in the NHS am clinical, fairly senior (band 7), started a new job in September and have witnessed and heard awful things about the management since I started. There is very high staff turnover in my department and morale is very low.

I have ten days of annual leave over the Xmas period, with two days during this where I am oncall. We all received an email today from our manager stating that as we have five members of staff off sick with Covid we need to be available over the Christmas period for work including additional on calls, which means some of us will have to come in when we’re on annual leave in the “worst case scenario”. Everyone I have spoken to has told me they just won’t answer their phones if called and that this could be prevented by the manager cancelling the outpatient clinics and/or diverting our emergency oncall service to a nearby hospital, which she apparently refuses to do.

My question is firstly does anyone with NHS knowledge know if she cancel our annual leave with next to no notice (she’s citing covid as an excuse for this) and also would it be unreasonable of me to not answer my phone if called?

My feelings are that it’s not really annual leave if the entire time I have to be available for work, I’m essentially oncall and not being paid to do so. I’ve seen online that NHS policy appears to be that adequate notice periods (length of annual leave plus one day) need to be applied and all other options exhausted before cancelling annual leave and this doesn’t seem to be the case here.

And it was like this pre covid as well - I actually think there is more of a emphasis on wellbeing now,

10 years or so ago I downed a glass of wine when answering the phone to my boss on the night before my wedding so I could truthfully decline the chance to come in that night! This was back in the day when junior doctors had fixed leave as standard and you only had 9days/4m so you could never have a fortnights holiday- and my work insisted on you taking 4.5/2m so you never even got a full week off - things have improved somewhat now and we are allowed whole weeks off generally now, And also if we give 8 weeks notice we have to be allowed our wedding day off now (I mean it’s ridiculous that it had to be written into the contract that junior doctors are allowed a day off to get married) but it’s not covid that’s made the nhs like this - it’s always been shit

This expectation, without adequate financial renumeration, is one of the main reasons I left a b7 role.

The stress was unbearable at times.

Aside from that, my b6 colleagues (as in regular mw banding) were earning more than me. One working less hours on permanent nights was on quite a bit more 😮

I worked for the nhs for 15 years (band 8b if relevant, so also senior clinical staff). My understanding is that your reading of the policy is correct - they need to provide sufficient notice and/or exhaust all other available options first. Where this doesn’t apply, is to public sector organisations like the police, whereby officers are ‘appointed’ and not employed (my partner is a senior ranking officer). In such organisations, leave can be cancelled last minute, or during it.

Personally, I think protected annual leave is important for your mental health, and therefore, your ability to do your job well or effectively. I would not listen too much to those who try to guilt trip you as an nhs worker into selling your soul to the job and ‘how would you sleep at night’ mentality if you try to forge a healthy work-life balance. In no other line of work outside the caring professions to I see this kind of talk levelled at employees. Of course you care about your patients, and I hope you give yourself 100% to your job when you are there, but this doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice the welfare of yourself and your family to other peoples altruistic standards of NHS workers.

Good luck resolving it!

There are clinical areas in the NHS which don't require you to work on Christmas day, or weekends or after 5pm routinely but are still acute areas. If you don't work on a ward or somewhere that delivers 24h care it is possible to get 10 days off over Christmas holidays without causing anyone else disruption. My department operates by allocating priority leave for Christmas if requested the year prior, and as and when requested till it's fully booked, just like any other time of year. It's done fairly by looking at previous years rotas. I dont think I'm a monster or unethical or being unfair to my colleagues by being fairly allocated leave that a) they might not have asked for b) not have applied for at time of priority booking.
I think it's awful that OP is being told she's wrong for taking 10 days AL off over the festive period when we have no knowledge of her role or department or how the leave was allocated. The fact remains the leave was granted, and AL being cancelled should not be the first line in contingency for service continuing to when you already know there is likely to be an issue.

Where I work, no one is allowed more than 2 days annual leave between 20 dec to 10 jan this year. No chance of getting 10 days leave

I think this year you can take 3 days leave and actually be off for 10 if you don’t work bank holidays and weekends.

We have some staff off for a full 2 weeks as others were happy to work or just take a couple of days.