Bank holidays

There is no automatic statutory entitlement to bank and public holidays. If you are given a paid day off for a bank holiday, your employer can count this as part of the 5.6 weeks statutory annual leave entitlement. You should check your contract of employment for details of your annual leave entitlement. Look for:

your annual leave entitlement, and whether this includes bank holidays
any additional bank holiday allowance, if not included as part of your annual leave
whether your workplace is open on bank holidays, and if so, whether you may be required to work
whether you’re entitled to enhanced rates of pay when working a normal shift or overtime shift that falls on a bank holiday.

If you work under NHS Agenda for Change terms and conditions, please also see Annex 25 for information about public holidays over the Christmas and New Year periods.

Part-time workers

If you work part time, your bank holiday entitlement may seem confusing. You must be treated fairly and have your annual leave, including bank holidays, calculated on a pro rata basis. Sometimes bank holiday entitlement is calculated by averaging hours worked over five or seven days and then allocated on a pro rata basis for part time workers. It should be a clear and transparent calculation.

If you disagree with your overall annual leave allowance, discuss this with your manager and request a written breakdown. If you are still in dispute, please contact us.

Bank holiday closures

If you work for a department or employer that is closed on bank holidays, depending on your working pattern, you may have to take some of your leave to cover bank holidays. For example, if you usually work on Mondays, you may have to use your leave to cover a bank holiday Monday closure, whereas if you do not work Mondays, you will have more flexibility in when you can use your leave.

On-call on bank holidays

Check the wording of your contract or local policy to see whether you are entitled to any enhanced pay rates if you are on-call on a bank holiday.

If you work under NHS Agenda for Change terms and conditions, section 13.4 states that "staff required to work or to be on-call on a general public holiday are entitled to equivalent time to be taken off in lieu at plain time rates, in addition to the appropriate payment for the duties undertaken".

Short-term sickness during bank holidays

There are three common scenarios for how your time off is treated if you are off sick on a bank holiday:

Your service does not open on bank holidays

In this scenario, you should be treated the same as if you were not sick that day, as you would have been unable to work regardless of the sickness because the service is closed. If you normally need to use a day’s leave, for example, because you work part time, or your bank holiday allowance is included as part of your annual leave allowance, then you will still need to do this. If not, leave should not be deducted.

Your service is open on bank holidays, and you were due to work

If this happens, annual leave should not be deducted because you are off sick rather than on leave. If leave is deducted, please contact us.

Your service is open on bank holidays, but you had booked leave for the bank holiday

How this is treated depends on whether bank holidays are included in your statutory holiday entitlement.

If bank holidays are included in your statutory holiday entitlement (5.6 weeks paid holiday a year), you must be allowed to take your statutory annual leave at a later time. This means that, provided you have followed your employer’s policy to report your sickness absence during a bank holiday that forms part of your minimum holiday entitlement, your employer should allow you to take a day off in lieu.

If your bank holidays are in addition to the statutory holiday entitlement, and you are off sick during a bank holiday, you would lose this day.

If you work part time, any time deducted should be pro-rated.

If you work under NHS Agenda for Change terms and conditions, sickness is covered in section 14 of the Terms and Conditions handbook.

If you are off sick for a long period, see our sickness guide for information about longer-term sickness and accrual of annual leave. The amount of leave that can be carried forward is limited to 20 days (for a full time worker).

Easter bank holidays

Most of the time the Easter bank holidays fall in April, however sometimes one or both of the Easter bank holidays fall in March. This can create confusion where your annual leave entitlement runs from 1 April to 31 March, as it means that there are nine or ten bank holidays within one leave year, rather than the usual eight, and then the following year there would be only six or seven bank holidays. For example, in 2024 Good Friday fell on 29 March, so there were nine bank holidays within the 2023-24 leave year, and then only seven bank holidays in the 2024-25 leave year.

Check the wording of your contract or local policy for how this is handled. For example, if your contract states “all bank holidays” or “plus bank holidays,” your employer must honour the extra one or two bank holidays that arise when two Easters occur in the same leave year. However, if your contract states “eight bank holidays” you may not be entitled to the extra day. Where there is one less bank holiday in a holiday year, you are still entitled to the statutory 5.6 weeks' leave.

If you work under NHS Agenda for Change terms and conditions, annual leave and general public holiday entitlements are set out in Section 13 of the NHS Terms and Conditions handbook.

Additional bank holidays

In some years an additional bank holiday is declared, typically for events related to the Royal Family. Whether you are entitled to the additional bank holiday depends on the wording of your contract or local policy, so check the wording for how this is handled. For example, if your contract states “all bank holidays” or “plus bank holidays,” your employer must honour the extra bank holiday. However, if your contract states “eight bank holidays” you may not be entitled to the extra day.