Holidays and sickness absence

The European Court has issued several key decisions about the relationship between sickness and statutory holiday rights. The government carried out a consultation some time ago on how best to change the WTRs to respond to these decisions (the Modern Workplaces consultation). The response to the consultation is still outstanding.

The European rulings on holiday and sickness absence discussed in this section only apply to the four weeks’ holiday under the Working Time Directive — not to the extra 1.6 weeks of holiday under UK law.

A worker continues to build up statutory annual leave under the Working Time Directive while off sick and can choose between taking paid holiday when off sick and saving it up to take when they return to work (HM Revenue and Customs v Stringer [2009] IRLR 677).

Under the Working Time Directive a worker cannot be forced to take annual leave while off sick (Pereda v Madrid Movilidad SA [2009] IRLR 959).

Taking paid holiday while off sick can be sensible where a worker has exhausted their contractual sick pay entitlement.