How many bank holidays am I entitled to?

[Kmward36]

I work for the NHS. I work full time, over 3 days. I am not ward based -office based. this area is not open evenings, weekends or bank holidays.

my contract states that I am entitled to my annual leave plus bank holidays on top. it doesn’t not specify bank holidays on working days etc.

I don’t work on a Monday. What happens to those bank holidays? Am I not entitled to those hours of leave because of the days I work? Or can I take them back elsewhere?

my colleagues who work on a Monday get this day off (on top of annual leave). My team leader has said it’s just tough I don’t work that day and I can’t use the hours another day.

I’ve emailed HR, just waiting to hear back. Thought I’d try and get some other points of view!

Are you working compressed hours, ie 37.5hrs over 3 days?

You're entitled to all of them if you're full time. The hours should just be added to your leave entitlement

Yeah it’s just compressed hours

You should get same as someone who works ft including Mondays. If you work it out in hours you can deduct accordingly as you take a day off.

The minimum is 5.6 weeks worth of holidays so 5.6 x however many hours you do per week. How many days do people working 5 days get?

I work in HR. The bank hols should be added to your A/L total. If you are working compressed yours you will need to deduct the hours you should have worked if your normal working day falls on a bank holiday.

It varies as a lot of them have been in the NHS over 5 or 10 years (which means you get more leave). So everyone has a different number

Ok, in that case you get the full annual leave entitlement and the full public holiday entitlement. I do compressed hours and work f/t for the NHS - I get 33 days a/l and 8 p/h (or whatever the public holidays are that year). I then add those days together and convert them to hours.

Whenever I take an a/l or p/h day I subtract the hours I would work - in my case I do 10 days over 9, so 8.22 hours (a f/t week in NHS Scotland is 37 hours) is what I put on my leave card for one day and that gets deducted from the total leave allowance.

You don’t lose any days by working compressed hours.

Thank you, that’s really useful to know. I didn’t think I should be loosing out but you never know.

If you don’t work Mondays, I think it’s just tough luck as you’re not working that day anyway.

just to add I don’t work in the NHS but I think this is what happens where I work.

In the NHS you'll get the bank holidays added to your AL entitlement if you don't work Mondays.

You get a pro rata number of bank holidays added to your annual entitlement even if you don't work some of them. This the gives you more choice on when to take the holidays.

Your boss is wrong in saying you can’t use them another day - you absolutely can. You get the total full time allowance or both a/l days and p/h days, just as every other full time employee. Only difference is that every time you take an a/l day or p/h day you have to subtract your full working day hours (does that work out around 12 hours if you’re working 37.5 over 3 days?)

Working part time or less days but not working Mondays is good. You just get to take those hours on a day of your choosing.

I got this. Didn't work Mondays so it was tough. So I changed my day off to a Friday instead.

Agree @fashionqueen0123 my day off every fortnight is a Monday so I can use those hours at another time of my choosing.

Thanks everyone, really useful to know. Hopefully our HR will clarify on Monday and I can get some hours!

If normal working week is five days and you work three days then you get 3/5 of eight days in lieu of bank holidays. But if a bank holiday falls on your working day you have to book it as holiday. You still gain as you get 1/5 of a day for each Monday even though you don't work them.

Would that not mean that if everyone else in the office works a Monday, they’d have to book a Monday off as annual leave to? As they currently don’t

Not in the case of compressed hours as the OP works - she’s a full time employee so gets the full allocation of both public holidays and annual leave.

Editjbg because I think I probably should have been less categorical about the below...

Your trust (almost certainly - edited to: probably) adds your bank holidays to your leave amount.

Edit - and if they don't, they should and the below way in hours would be a good way to do it.

How long have you been in the NHS? (Service ever for holidays, not continuous service.)

What most places that run a shift pattern do is give you your holiday in hours - so in the NHS that's 27 days of 7.5 hours so 202.5 hours for less than 5 years, 29 days - 217.5 hours for 5-10 years, and 33 days - 247.5 hours for 10+ years.

Then you'd add bank holidays onto that at 8 per year, each of 7.5 hours. So that's another 60 hours of leave on top.

So:

<5 years gives you 262.5 hours total
5-10 is 277.5 hours
And 10+ is 307.5 hours.

Each day of leave then uses 12.5 hours worth, so between 21 and 25 shifts worth of leave for you.

Then if you aren't rostered on a bank holiday (i.e you still work 37.5 hours that week) you'll not use any leave up for it, and if you have it off by booking it off, or because your workplace is close (so you only work two shifts that week) it would use 12.5 hours of annual leave.

Very long explanation, sorry!

Thanks! This is how it used to work when I had my previous job!

I’ve been in the nhs 11 years.

I think because I’m the only person in the team working these hours it’s confused everyone. My bank holidays are not included in my annual leave allocation at the moment. Will be changing that once I’ve spoken to HR

That is nonsense.

As @Ineffable23 says, your PH allowance will get added to you annual leave allowance. Folk rostered to work public hols but then taking it off. Need to use their leave allowance to cover the time off.

They definitely should be - you get the full amount of a/l and p/h as a full time worker, then just subtract any day you take off, whether that’s an a/l day or a p/h day, from your total. Your a/l and p/h are added together and converted to hours, then you subtract your leave from that.