NHS Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Easter pay

Christmas Day, Boxing Day (26 December) and New Year’s Day are all public holiday entitlements in the NHS handbook. When any of them falls on a Saturday or Sunday, arrangements must still preserve the right to three public holidays in the Christmas and New Year period. Hours worked on a public holiday are paid at the Sunday and public holiday enhancement for your band.

What the handbook says

In England this is paragraph 2.28 of Section 2 of the handbook (2.27 in Northern Ireland and Wales, 2.25 in Scotland). It says the public holiday entitlements include Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, and that Annex 25 sets out what applies when they fall on a weekend. Scotland has four public holidays across the Christmas and New Year period.

The pay rates are the usual ones. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, hours on a public holiday attract basic pay plus 94% for band 1, 83% for band 2, 69% for band 3 and 60% for bands 4 to 9. Our guide to NHS unsocial hours pay has the full table and the Scottish figures. For TOIL, the 60 hour threshold and part-time rules, see NHS bank holiday pay.

When the days fall on a weekend

Annex 25 is not included in the version 63 text we could read. The summary below comes from the 2021 copy of the handbook (amendment 40), where the tables are hard to read. Treat it as a guide, and check the current Annex 25 and your employer’s local arrangements before relying on it.

In outline:

• If 25 December falls on a Friday, the public holiday provisions apply to work on 25, 26 and 28 December, and the Sunday provisions to 27 December. A person working all four days gets a maximum of two public holidays and one Sunday.
• If 25 December falls on a Saturday, the public holiday provisions cover the Christmas days and the days that stand in for them, with a similar cap of two public holidays and one Sunday over 25 to 28 December, and one public holiday and one Sunday over 1 to 3 January.
• If 25 December falls on a Sunday, Saturday 24 December is a normal Saturday. Public holiday provisions apply on 25, 26 and 27 December, with a maximum of two public holidays and one Sunday for anyone working all three, and a similar cap for 1 and 2 January.

Staff receive the rate that normally applies to public holiday working. Local partnerships may vary the arrangements provided there are no more than three public holidays in the combined period.

A hypothetical example

Say Christmas Day falls on a Sunday and you work all of 25, 26 and 27 December. Under the 2021 Annex 25 summary, you would be paid two of those days as public holidays and one as a Sunday, rather than three public holidays.

Your employer should show how the days are labelled on the rota and on your payslip.

Easter

The handbook text read has no Easter-specific pay rule. Easter Sunday is a Sunday, so the Sunday and public holiday rates apply to all hours worked from midnight to midnight. If you work on an Easter public holiday, the same enhancement applies, with TOIL in the usual way where your entitlement includes public holidays.

NHS Employers’ guidance notes that where Easter falls in March, there may be two Easter holidays in one twelve-month period. Local partners decide how to handle that, so ask your employer which holidays count in your leave year.

What to check with your employer

Figures come from handbook version 63, and the Annex 25 summary from the 2021 handbook copy. The annex could have been edited since, and your employer or union rep confirms what applies locally. Useful questions:

• Which version of Annex 25 does the trust follow?
• How will the Christmas and New Year days be labelled this year, given which weekdays they fall on?
• Are my public holidays consolidated into annual leave, which removes TOIL for working them?
• How is overtime on a public holiday paid? The handbook says double time.

Payroll can explain a payslip, a union rep can raise it formally, and ACAS gives free guidance. For the legal basics see bank holidays at work, and for rota planning our guide to NHS shift patterns.