Letter recrediting holiday

Use our letter when an employee falls sick either just before or during a period of pre-booked annual leave and they’ve both complied with your sickness absence reporting procedures and produced relevant evidence of their incapacity. It recredits their annual leave and instead classifies their absence as sick leave.

The law

The case law says that if a worker is absent on sick leave during a period that had been scheduled as annual leave, they are allowed to reschedule their holidays to take them at a different time, regardless of whether their sickness commences before or during that annual leave (and even if that means allowing the annual leave to be carried forward into the next holiday year). So if a worker falls ill during a period in which they had pre-booked annual leave, you should revoke that annual leave in favour of sickness absence - provided that the worker has complied with your normal sickness absence reporting procedures (as set out in your sickness absence policy) and has produced the required evidence of unfitness to work to justify having their annual leave reclassified as sickness absence. The evidence required will normally be a self-certification form for the first week and thereafter a statement of fitness for work (fit note) or other relevant medical evidence. If the worker was overseas at the time, it may mean they need to produce a letter or other medical evidence from a foreign doctor or hospital.

A reclassification

In this circumstance you can use our Letter Recrediting Holiday. It advises the employee that, having received their medical evidence, their pre-booked annual leave will now be re-credited to their annual leave entitlement and instead the relevant days of incapacity will be classed as sickness absence.

Sickness absence reporting

As this also requires compliance with your sickness absence reporting procedures, many of those who fall ill whilst overseas on holiday are unlikely to phone you at the time to report that they’re now in bed sick. Even if this does happen, as they’re abroad and therefore still technically on holiday, there’s nothing to stop you saying that you will require some form of medical evidence to support their position that they’re now ill, not just a self-certificate.