Annual leave and sick leave

asset2004

I'm hoping someone can help with a query.
Hypothetically speaking if someone has annual leave booked but ends up on sick leave which overlaps the annual leave does the person lose their holiday day or can they take them again at a later date?
TIA

Comyface

In our company if you have a doctor's note you can claim the holidays back. Not sure if that's law or just a concession, though.

PasturesNew

I've always understood that if you are off sick on days when you have holiday booked, then the sick leave is what you count it as.

If you had 5 days booked as holiday and were sick Mon-Wed, then you'll have used up 2 days of annual leave on Thu-Fri only.

For people who don't get paid sick pay and who weren't going away on holiday, just booked the time off, they can choose to have the sick pay counted as annual leave just so they get paid for it,

p00hsticks

According to this government site

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/Timeoffandholidays/DG_10034711
If you become ill during your holiday, there is no automatic right to convert your holiday to sick leave, although your employer may take a sympathetic approach. You will have to provide medical certificates as required.

DaveMacD

Depends on the company. Where I work, if you do take time off sick, you get holiday times back. I've got nearly a full month off owed to me because my time off sick after an assault covered my summer fortnight and a week in autumn. You could probably argue that if you get docked wages while off sick, then you can't be on holiday.

moneysavingexpert79

p00hsticks wrote: »

According to this government site

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/Timeoffandholidays/DG_10034711
If you become ill during your holiday, there is no automatic right to convert your holiday to sick leave, although your employer may take a sympathetic approach. You will have to provide medical certificates as required.

However it is slightly different if you become sick before you go on annual leave, in which case your employer would have to count the sickness first.

Debt_Free_Chick

I have a feeling that there's been a recent Court/Tribunal case on exactly this subject and that the outcome was that sick leave is sick leave, even when you're on holiday. So if you go off to the Tropics for 2 weeks, get Delhi-Belly for four days, you get those days back as annual holiday. Seems madness, but that was the outcome.

however, it may be that it's going to be appealed, so it's not yet a "right" - just a precedent that might be used for anyone else in a similar situation, who goes to Tribunal.

I'll see if I can find the details ....

Debt_Free_Chick

Yup ... here it is

It's a European Court ruling, so probably now binding on the UK and overriding existing UK law and company policy. The link is to an article from the lawyers Wragge & Co and includes the following comment:-

"That is not however the end of the story. It appears from the ruling that a worker is not only entitled to postpone holiday because of sickness as in the case of Mr Pereda, but also where the worker falls ill while absent on annual leave. In those circumstances the worker must be allowed to reschedule their annual leave on return to work."

GavB79

Yes, there was a recent EU ruling.
If you fall ill before your holiday starts, you can self-certificate up to the usual 5 days or whatever even if it goes into your holiday, and get a doctor's note for any longer period.
If you fall ill during your holiday, you must produce a doctor's certificate for proof to get your holiday entitlement back. You can't self-certificate.

zzzLazyDaisy

Thanks for this DFC. Just to clarify, though...

The Pereda case concerned an employee who had an accident and went off sick. He had booked annual leave for later in the year but by the time his holiday came round he was still on sick leave. The ECJ ruled that he must be allowed to take his holiday later. This is the normal interpretation in the UK (this complaint was a spanish case).

The scenario of someone falling ill after starting annual leave and subsequently seeking to take the time off as sick leave was not directly dealt with by the ECJ. Some comments by the ECJ could be interpreted to say that this also gives the employee falling ill on annual leave the right to reschedule that part of the annual leave, and that may well be how this develops. BUT it will take a case on those particular facts to go through the courts to establish that this the correct approach.

So for the moment the first scenario is a legal right, the second is not a legal right although it is now in the frame and could become so at some point.

(Just don't want anyone to go to their employer all guns blazing about a change in the law that they read about on MSE )

Debt_Free_Chick

Thanks zzzLazyDaisy. You're absolutely right to warn others not to go demanding rights based on this ruling. I was relying on Wragge's comment that it "would appear" to confer the right to be paid for time sick whilst on annual leave, but agree that it's by no means certain and will probably rely on future case law. Thanks for that.