NHS - Annual leave when changing roles

lar90

I'm not sure if people will know but advice would be appreciated.
I'm moving to a different role within the same nhs trust. The role is a specialist qualification which is partially university hours/partially work hours but I'm employed by the trust and staying on same band. This is my third change. Once from band 5 to band 6 (different role) in the same office. Then recently I've been made to move office but same role. Each time I've continued to take annual leave from the same pot/allowance. My allowance does not change with this new role. So originally we were told although the role is Sep 20- Sep 21, we continue with the trusts usual annual leave year April - April. Because the new role has set holidays, we were required to take our full years entitlement minus the set holidays (prior to april) before we start the new role in September. This has been the same procedure in previous years that this qualification has run. This was extremely handy to me because due to coronavirus, I have no childcare and it meant my holidays worked extremely well in covering the time off. 

My daughter finishes school one week today and the trust have now decided that instead of this, they will allow us partial years annual leave (April - Sep) as if we were leaving the trust in September. Due to the fixed holidays, this means we miss out on 80 hours of annual leave in this financial year. This also means we're having all of our annual leave cancelled. With 1 weeks notice (and I haven't officially been told yet, I've heard of somebody else who's been told). I'm wondering if they have a right to do this? I believe the reason is, they've been so behind with recruitment this year that everyone has only had a few weeks to squeeze their leave in. My leave has not affected any of the normal allowances (no more than 4 staff off at once etc) and I have squeezed around everybody else's prebooked leave so I'm not taking leave off anyone else. I've checked the policy and the only guidance is for people leaving the trust, not for change of role.

I don't have a union but others left in the same situation do so I don't know if anything will come of that. At the moment, I'm in the position of leaving my child home alone for the next 6 weeks (obviously I can't do this) or going off sick. It's put me in a horrific position and I have also booked holidays/trips etc around this leave.

JamoLew

have you spoken to HR - I know they are pretty toothless and useless nowadays, but they should be able to help.
Going off sick for childcare - i hope you are joking - apart from the obvious moral issue, this would be gross misconduct (ask HR about that)
Plenty of holiday clubs around for kids - not ideal, but its what we did a few years ago

lar90

I'm not serious about going off sick, I more meant sick with the stress of the idea of my child being left home alone because I've had all of my leave taken! Finding a holiday club with one weeks notice, during coronavirus and having zero funds in the bank to cover it?! It would be a miracle.