Unpaid leave- NHS

[Stylistformyboys]

I have written to my boss to ask for 6 weeks leave over the school summer holidays, I think he might say no cause we're short staffed at the minute. My brother in law is getting married in Canada and my DH is best man, so it's important to us to go, can they legally refuse me?

I think he's well within his rights to refuse unfortunately. I'm not 100%, but it's probably managers discretion.

Yes, he can. Can you take less than 6 weeks? That’s Almost the entire school holidays and will impact on every one else in the departments’ holiday.

Of course they can refuse you- imagine if everyone wanted the whole school holidays off and they were obliged to say yes!

Presumably you have DC, if they are under 18 you are entitled to unpaid parental leave but your employer can postpone the dates you request for up to 6 months for business reasons, and if they are short-staffed it seems unlikely they’ll accommodate you.

I think this is the kind of request I would have discussed in person with my manager rather than just writing tbh.

Presumably you don’t actually need 6 weeks off for a wedding?

Why can't you request normal annual leave?

Why do you need 6 weeks? I think you'd have a far better chance of being given the leave, paid or unpaid, if you asked for 10 days/2 weeks. To have the whole summer holidays off at a time when surely leave requests are at their highest is somewhat unreasonable.

Why do you need six weeks to go to a wedding?

Apart from everything everyone else has said above, some public sector agencies run schemes where you can purchase annual leave. Is that an option?

What does your leave policy say? I know someone who does this but they are 'back office' NHS with a workload that can be adjusted accordingly

Perhaps it's worth asking HR what your legal rights are surrounding the request.

One thing to consider is that you're asking to take the entire summer holidays off and you're asking rather late - most people will have already booked off their summer leave, which will affect your request.

If it were an annual leave request, your boss can (and probably would) reject the request because of the overall leave levels for those weeks. I had one of my weeks in July rejected because too many people in my team had already booked that week off. My fault for putting the request in too late.

Also, taking the entire summer off won't enamour you with your colleagues who will lose their opportunities to take leave over the summer.

Does it really have to be 6 weeks? 2 would be a far more reasonable request.

Agree that you probably dont need all 6 weeks off, 3 might be more reasonable and that's pushing it in employment

You don't have any 'legal rights' here. You are paid to do a job and you just want to walk away from it for 6 weeks with very little notice and no thought about how your work will be covered. You can resign if you wish.

Sorry but as a NHS manager I wouldn’t accommodate it.

Annual leave is already planned and that covers all of the school holidays through to April next year.

I already have staff booked off in the holidays so I wouldn’t be able to have another member of staff off. Leave like this needs to be planned well in advance and even then I wouldn’t authorise six weeks off over the school holidays.

Sorry but I think you have left it too late and your manager has no obligation to agree it.