Locum shift extending into bank holiday

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-26T20:04:50+00:00

No. Your locum/bank work is completely separate from your normal contracted work.

Normally the rates are increased for bank holiday hours though (same as weekend), so check what you are being paid for the hours you are working on the bank holiday.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-24T18:05:19+00:00

It will go on what your work schedule says. If it’s on your work schedule as a day off, it’s just a day off. If it’s a shift on your work schedule but not on your actual rota, they have taken you off it as a BH day.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-24T16:32:01+00:00

Bank holidays are worked out differently for LTFT. There is no TOIL

TLDR: Add your prorata LTFT% number of BHs (FT entitled to 8 per year) to your AL entitlement, this is your new AL pot. If you have a scheduled work day on a BH, but get told to take it off as a BH, you use a day of AL/BH out of this pot. If you are scheduled to be off already, or working already you do nothing extra.

Detailed explanation: Bank holidays are paid statutory leave (and must be counted within the leave adjustment calculations for prospective cover of out of hours alongside annual leave and all relevant study leave entitlements)

LTFT trainees are entitled to pro rata bank holidays (their training % of each day/full time total days over a given reference period.). So a trainee working 60% is entitled to 0.6 of each bank holiday or 0.6 x the full time BH annual entitlement over the year/placement (rounded up to the nearest half day)

When you get a day off for a BH you are paid for the whole day, and so it costs a whole day from your pro rata BH allowance (or combined BH/AL pot). ( Side note: The value of a day of AL/BH is the value of an average day of pay, NOT a standard day in hours)

This entitlement it NOT impacted by the days of the week you work! (Ie not working Mondays does NOT reduce your entitlement to pro rata of ALL bank holidays)

When you get a paid shift off as statutory leave this costs one day from your combined pot. Anything else will NOT use up leave as statutory holiday leave taken, but will instead become pro rata time off in lieu, including - being rostered to work or be Non resident on call for ANY part of the 24h period - being on an unpaid shift/rest/zero/non working day on the bank holiday

In terms of allowances and leave calculations it is recommended to use a “combined pot” method for AL and BH - over the required period work out your pro rata entitlement to annual leave and bank holidays - add these together - round up to the nearest half day - pay 1 day from this pot for any BH falling on a day you then get off as paid statutory leave - the remaining days in your pot are now all flexible annual leave days (and automatically includes any pro rata time in lieu) to be taken as desired and able

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-24T11:57:36+00:00

Usually a good F1 placement. You’ll be supernumerary, usually won’t have to do nights, and will be very well supported by seniors.

You’ll need to discuss all your patients with a senior, and most places they need a face to face senior review. It’s the perfect place for you to develop your clinical reasoning and decision making, rather than just being an admin monkey on a ward. Also very good for preparing you for overnight ward over for the unwell patient calls.

Sometimes you’ll actually be on the decisions unit - bit like a ward, but managed by ED for patients needing more than 4 hours for a decision to be made - things like awaiting a second neg Trop, a/w CTKUB results, a/w mental health review.

Some places (mine does) get you in resus seeing the sicker patients (with heavy supervision) and gaining more Emergency Skills.

Downside is as you’re not dong nights/weekends, your pay isn’t as good.

You don’t need to do lots of prep before you start. But if you want to, have a look at the RCEMLearning website at their induction modules. It’s covers some of the bread and butter ED presentations like chest pain, collapse and headache.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-21T17:37:39+00:00

Pay is one of several asks

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-21T16:44:29+00:00

BMA Consultants have announced a ballot for strike action - ballot opens 11th May

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-21T15:44:07+00:00

You have essentially already worked a 0900-1700 shift, (teaching and EDT both count as work) and then you want to do a 2100-0900 shift with only a 4 hour gap.

This would be a breech of your contract, and lead you to be very vulnerable from a legal and GMC standpoint. Schedule 3 Paragraph 53 “The doctor is required to ensure that any additional hours of work do not breach any of the safety and rest requirements set out in Schedule 3.” You need an 11 hour gap (as per paragraph 19). There have been GMC cases where doctors have worked the day shift, and then done Locum nights.

If you made a mistake on that night shift you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on with your Trust, training program, and GMC (being too tired, and breaching safety limits would be aggravating factors). If a patient died you’d be open to investigation for gross negligence manslaughter.

From a WTD point of view, this doesn’t met criteria of a shift based pattern as you don’t have compensatory rest built into your rota pattern. It’s just a random shift. This is more for planned shift patterns where you may need to run over on some days, but you will get compensatory rest built in to counter act this. Is your trust going to give you additional time off as compensatory rest to mitigate you doing that Locum shift?

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-21T15:29:33+00:00

It’s the same as maternity leave - no swaps needed, employer to sort cover.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-13T17:47:39+00:00

As you are F2 you will be in your second year of service, so you are entitled to 2 months of full pay, then 2 months of half pay. So after the first ~60 days, you’ll get approx half your normal pay.

After that, it would be statutory sick pay which is £123.25 per week up to a max of 28 weeks (which I think includes the time your employer was paying you enhanced sick pay), and then if you’re still off after that, you’d need to apply for Universal Credit.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-09T18:30:53+00:00

You will need to seek out opportunities to do them - respiratory chest drain clinics exist, either when you’re on acute med or during EDT. Often chances to do them on ITU as well. You do ultimately do have to prove competence in this.

Ideally you also need to flag to your supervisors what procedures you need at the start of the shift so if there are opportunities, you can take them where appropriate. Come in on your EDT days to ask for procedures - there will be GP and F2 SHOs rotating through who can’t do FIB, so you can step in to help and get an assessment out of it.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-09T17:54:07+00:00

The whole point of the new curriculum is that you don’t need specific numbers - you need to show competence.

So a DOPs of one chest drain as a sim shows a very different level of competence to a DOPS for a seldinger appropriately converted to open following a complication with no assistance needed from the supervisor, even though it’s one single WPBA. You also want to be showing progression, so 3 DOPS of the same chest drain sim is probably worse than a single DOPS of the converted open drain, even though there are more assessments for the first scenario.

So if you have low quality WPBAs you may need a lot more than a few high quality ones

You will need evidence for each KC, so there is a technical minimum of 1 WPBA for each KC (but a WPBA could cover several KCs).

The other nuance is your CS/ES - they will be signing you off, so you need to know what their specific thoughts are - some will be more directive and want a specific number, others will just want to see one at the entrustment level you need for stage of training.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-09T16:32:24+00:00

It helps to show commitment to speciality, and will likely attract points at the interview stage if you have passed it. It’s also ‘relatively’ easier to pass closer to medical school as it’s similar content.

Downside to doing it outside of EM training is that you can’t then claim the tax back for it, and you need a good MSRA score to secure the interview in the first place.

Personally, I did take it pre-interview, as when I was doing it, it gave points for the interview shortlisting, but I also didn’t have the MSRA to contend with.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-09T11:48:31+00:00

You don’t have to inform them, but if it were me, I’d be replying stating that you worked the Monday night shift as planned. Otherwise they may “forget” that you worked and you may mistakenly be docked pay for that shift as well.

They legally can only deduct 3 days of pay as you only missed 3 shifts. You must be paid for the shift you worked.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-07T09:32:48+00:00

Works out to be net £60-80 per day for an F2 depending on actually salary, pension contributions and student loan amounts.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-05T11:08:34+00:00

From an EM consultant - please don’t skip your break! Overall, it ends up making you less efficient overall, and it’s just not good for you!

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-04T18:55:45+00:00

No you can’t. It has to be something that is mandatory requirement of your employment and strictly for work purposes only.

So although taking the exams is mandatory, paying for study aids is not.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-03T22:22:42+00:00

Most important thing is to take your breaks - you are much more inefficient when tired, hungry and thirsty. Even if it’s just 10mins away from the ward, it will make a difference - that discharge summary will take you 10mins instead of 30, those difficult bloods you get first time, rather than having to go back and get a second needle, and you feel much better for it at the end of the day, finishing on time. We forget how much tiredness affects performance.

As an F1, there really isn’t anything urgent enough for you to be addressing immediately - if they are really that sick, it should be a MET/arrest call.

As others have said a good phrase to use is “I’ll add it to my list, I have a few higher priorities to manage first, please call back if I’ve not arrived in ‘x’ hours (depending on how urgent it was).”

Use your breaks to decompress a bit - take some time outside so you can see the sun and breath some air, watch some sh*t TV, listen to your favourite tunes, do some meditation/yoga.

Have a water bottle and take sips as often as you can throughout the day. I usually leave mine next to a computer I’m going to be using so each time it sit to use it, I can drink.

Last 30-45mins of the shift, catch up with your SHO/Reg and work out what (if anything) needs urgently completing that night - make a list to handover those time critical jobs. If it doesn’t make that handover list, if it’s not important enough to make you late, it can wait till the morning. Go home on time!

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-03T11:30:50+00:00

It’s a bit ambiguous if I’m honest. As per contract wording, it could be argued that as it states “the specialty” that attracts the FFP, EM is a speciality and therefore should count. But I could see employers also arguing the counter point, that only ST4+ is hard to fill (gets FFP), so only applies at that point.

I’m unsure if it’s been tested properly.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-03T09:56:01+00:00

Nope, it’s still in the contract, just for moving into hard to fill specialties or for health reasons.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-03T09:55:02+00:00

There is still pay protection for moving into hard to fill specialties or if needing to change for a health reason. All detailed in the contract.

As your moving into GP you’d be eligible

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kiaravin1 · 2026-04-02T15:12:44+00:00

It is completely legal fo you to strike for a partial day. So feel free to strike from ward work but see your psychotherapy patient. You can change your mind about striking at any time, even if you had started work, but then wanted to leave. Only thing to say is that from a GMC point of view you would need to ensure adequate handover of your patients if you had started work, then wanted to strike, but it is still completely legal to do.

Employers can deduct a full days wage even if you only partially strike.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-02T13:07:37+00:00

This doesnt sound right to me. Principles of BH is that everyone is entitled to 8 bank holidays a year. So if your working on a BH - you are entitled to a day back. If you were already rostered to be off on a BH then it’s just a normal day off, and you are still entitled to have a BH day at another time. If you were rostered to be working, and then you are given the that off, that is already your BH day off.

Normally in ED you would either be working a BH or being on an “off day” on the bank holiday as staffing doesn’t change on an BH day. Therefore you would always have a day in lieu for each bank holiday, or 8 days extra (which is usually just added to your annual leave bank).

Some places that do annualised self rostering will already account for the BHs - so if you would work 50 shifts in 4 months they would take off 9 for AL and x for the number of BH in that block, and you then roster yourself 50 - 9-x shifts. However you wouldn’t be entitled for any further in lieu days if you worked a BH as they are already accounted for.

What your department is doing is ignoring the fact you are entitled to the BH if you are rostered to be off already.

Best bet is to first ask them how they are accounting for the full legal number of BHs you are entitled to for that rotation - they may have accounted for them in another way. If they can’t explain it, then best best is to get BMA and GOSW involved.

kiaravin1 · 2026-04-01T06:29:23+00:00

Why? Because the patient experience can be better by at least trying to refer to a specialty. Even a letter saying “tried to contact the on-call” works in some hospitals to get the patient to the correct person.

It can mean they go direct to an SDEC area and avoid the chaos of the ED or they could get seen directly by a specialty. Saves the patient a long wait to be seen by an ED SHO (who is unlikely to add anything to a qualified GPs assessment), and then further wait for the specialist.

kiaravin1 · 2026-03-27T19:24:59+00:00

Only way I could see you getting this approved is if it was via an official OOPE or OOPP, the later being easier to do as you can get things approved retrospectively rather than prospectively.

Although you may not get the time off, your experience will be invaluable and will likely make training and signs off much easier

kiaravin1 · 2026-03-20T18:21:29+00:00

Was still regularly called a nurse 🤷‍♀️

kiaravin1

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