Employees have the right to request a period of paid leave during their long-term sickness absence. This will be beneficial in limiting the accrual and carryover of annual leave and complement revised arrangements for phased returns where use of accrued annual leave may be less. Payment can be for the whole annual leave entitlement, not just statutory leave.
Long-term sickness is defined as any absence period over 4 weeks. However, paid leave will only be granted when the employee is in a half pay or no pay period of sick leave.
Application for paid leave during long-term sickness should be made via the employee's manager and submitted to the Shared Services Centre using the form. The form requires the number of days or hours leave to be paid and the actual leave dates to be recorded. Requests for leave and payment must be made in advance.
For the period of paid leave, any continuing occupational sick pay entitlement will be suspended and replaced by full leave pay (after first deducting any benefit they may be in receipt of). Occupational sick pay will resume following the period of paid leave with the entitlement which remained at the point of suspension - it will not restart at day one.
Where there is an entitlement to statutory sick pay or benefit, these payments will continue but the Shared Services Centre will make adjustments to ensure the employee does not receive more than their full pay entitlement in total.
Employee's entitlement to sick pay
| Service (years) | Full pay (months) | Half pay (months) |
|---|
| 1 |
1 |
After 4 months service |
| 2 |
2 |
2 |
| 3 |
4 |
4 |
| 4 and 5 |
5 |
5 |
| After 5 |
6 |
6 |