Study Leave - Frequently Asked Questions
Before contacting your local Study Leave Coordinator or NHS England please ensure that you review any relevant information below.
You can request your login details from the Accent Leave Manager homepage at any time: go to https://accent.hicom.co.uk/Portal/Live/Web/ and click on ‘Forgotten password’ – type in the email address that you have registered with NHSE (the address held on the Trainee Information System, TIS) and click Send reset password link. Your login credentials will then be emailed to you from NoReply@hicom.co.uk - you may need to check your junk/spam folder as your email provider may filter the email.
If you do not receive login credentials, email England.StudyLeave.EM@nhs.net with your first name, surname, GMC/GDC/PH number and preferred email address. Please put “Trainee Login Request” in the subject.
Trainee details are primarily managed by our Programmes Team; please contact the team on the appropriate address below:
- For doctors in Foundation programmes: England.FoundationProgrammes.EM@nhs.net
- For doctors in General Practice programmes: England.GPProgrammes.EM@nhs.net
- For doctors in Public Health programmes: England.PublicHealth.Midlands@nhs.net
- For all other trainees on East Midlands training programmes: England.SpecialtyProgrammes.EM@nhs.net
Placements are all managed by our Programmes Team; please contact the team on the appropriate address below:
- For doctors in Foundation programmes: England.FoundationProgrammes.EM@nhs.net
- For doctors in General Practice programmes: England.GPProgrammes.EM@nhs.net
- For doctors in Public Health programmes: England.PublicHealth.Midlands@nhs.net
- For all other trainees on East Midlands training programmes: England.SpecialtyProgrammes.EM@nhs.net
Per the Study Leave Policy, all study leave must be applied for in advance of the leave taking place: you will not be able to submit a retrospective leave request on Accent Leave Manager, and will trigger an error. If you are attempting to submit a leave request for an activity that has already taken place or add expenses after submitting an application, please contact your local Study Leave Coordinator at the Trust or GP Programme Office, confirming the following:
- Your full name
- Your GMC/GDC/PH number (if applicable)
- The date/s of study leave
- The activity you are applying for
- A breakdown of any expenses you wish to claim - individual amounts for travel (public transport cost or number of miles), accommodation, subsistence and course fee
- The venue, course provider, and any other details to be included in your application
- The reason/s why your request was not submitted prospectively.
This can mean one of two things.
Firstly, please check the dates of your leave. Per the Study Leave Policy, all study leave must be applied for in advance of the leave taking place. If you are trying to submit a retrospective application please see the previous FAQ for details.
If the dates are correct and are not retrospective, this usually means that Leave Approvers are not set up for this post. This may be because it is a new post number. Please contact the NHS England team (England.StudyLeave.EM@nhs.net) who can investigate and set up the approvers as appropriate.
“Private” leave is for private exam revision, in the run-up to an exam. You’re entitled to a maximum of 5 Private leave days a year, and this comes out of your Discretionary entitlement. Please note that Foundation trainees cannot apply for Private leave, as exams are not part of the Foundation curriculum. Please note that you cannot apply for expenses for Private leave, as it must only be used for days when you are revising privately yourself (and therefore should not incur any costs).
“Exam” leave is for attending exams, and comes out of your Curriculum required entitlement if the exam is required for your curriculum. If the exam is not required for your curriculum, it will come from your Discretionary entitlement.
“Study” leave is for everything else.
Once you've logged into your Leave Manager account, go to My Entitlements (for your study leave days, https://accent.hicom.co.uk/LeaveManager/Live/Web/MyEntitlements/Index). Look for the current training year (this will normally be at the top of each section).
As a reminder, the study leave year runs from changeover date in August to the changeover date the following August except for programmes with nationally agreed start dates in September, where the leave year is September to September. This applies regardless of individual trainees’ progression dates.
- As with annual leave Less Than Full-time Trainees (LTFT) receive study leave days pro-rata to a whole time trainee in any one calendar year. If the planned number of study leave days in any one year will exceed the entitlement available, this may be increased on a case-by-case basis subject to written (emailed to england.studyleave.em@nhs.net) approval from your TPD/Head of School for specific activities (i.e. you must have a clear plan of how you will use your days, rather than just requesting an additional X days).
- If you are in GP/specialty training in an East Midlands Trust post, you can access the uncapped budget regardless of being LTFT for as long as you are in that post. This does not apply to Foundation doctors, Dentists, or GP trainees in GP placements.
- Trainees on parental leave will receive a reduced entitlement for their parental leave period.
- Trainees who start or complete their training part way through the study leave year will receive a pro-rata entitlement until the end of the leave year. This also applies to trainees who start in February.
- Entitlement to study leave ends once a trainee reaches CCT and trainees are not entitled to study leave during the Period of Grace.
- Trainees on Out of Programme Experience (OOPE), Out of Programme Research (OOPR) or Out of Programme Career Break (OOPC) are not entitled to study leave for the period they are out of programme. Trainees on Out of Programme Training (OOPT) are normally only entitled to study leave for this period if they are occupying a training post on a training programme in our region.
If your entitlement on Accent Leave Manager does not match the figure on the policy, and you are not affected by any of the factors above, please contact england.studyleave.em@nhs.net.
The Curricular/Discretionary split is set at the beginning of the academic year by your TPD, based on the most appropriate distribution for all trainees on the programme.
However, we recognise that some trainees may have different needs. If you feel that you need more of one type of days and less of the other, please contact your TPD to discuss this. If they are supportive, please ask them to email england.studyleave.em@nhs.net to confirm the number of days to be 'transferred', and we will update Accent Leave Manager accordingly.
You can apply for online courses or conferences in the same way as you would for a face-to-face course. When applying for an online course, please ensure that you specify the venue to "Online".
If you are applying for an online resource that will be used over a period of time and has no specific attendance date, please enter the date you plan to purchase the resource as the activity date. If you want to apply for study leave time to use the resource, please enter the dates you plan to use as study leave.
If you are not using any study leave time for this, please ensure to amend the number of days on the application to '0'.
To claim expenses from your study leave budget, you must have submitted a leave request with expenses on Accent Leave Manager.
For study leave taken over weekends, bank holidays and days when you would not otherwise be working you can either take time off in lieu or not declare those as time off in the application process (by entering 0 for study leave days when submitting the leave request). If you wish to take time in lieu, you must apply for the original leave date (on weekends/bank holidays/non-working days) prospectively on Accent Leave Manager. Arrangements for taking the time off in lieu should be discussed with employers prior to taking the initial study leave.
You can then include your expenses as normal before submitting your application.
Please remember when adding expenses to Accent Leave Manager to click ‘Save’ after entering every line of expenses (even the first one); expenses are not saved until and unless you click the button. To check that the expenses have saved when you’re applying, make sure that the expense appears as a line under Expenses section of the application.
In line with the Study Leave policy (and NHS Terms & Conditions of Service) you can claim the following expenses:
- Course/Conference fees
- Public transport
- Mileage (at NHS Terms & Conditions of Service Reserve Rate)
- Parking
- Overnight accommodation (at standard rate)
- Subsistence (in line with NHS Terms & Conditions of Service rates)
The rates (including links to the relevant NHS Employers pages for NHS Terms & Conditions of Service) are specified in the Study Leave policy.
No other expenses can be claimed through study leave as standard. Below are examples of excluded expenses, but the list is not exhaustive:
- Retrospective applications
- Examination fees
- Membership/subscription fees
- Credit card charges
- Conventions
- Ceremonies
- Equipment, incl. books
- Publication, abstract submission or printing costs (such as poster printing)
- Visas, application fees
- Car insurance
- Low emission zone charges
Any costs where evidence of payment cannot be provided (i.e. receipts)
Please note that whether costs can be claimed or not is not affected by whether it is a curriculum required or discretionary activity; the above list applies regardless.
For any international leave application NHS England can only support either the course/conference fee or travel and accommodation, whichever is the lower amount. For full details on international leave please see the Study Leave policy below.
We have a video in the Study Leave catalogue on the NHS Learning Hub, "Accent Leave Manager: Applying for leave and expenses": this takes you through the application process, including applying for expenses.
Please note that you cannot apply for expenses for Private leave, as Private leave must only be used for private exam revision (and as such will not incur expenses).
Cancelling leave requests should only be done when you are no longer planning to attend the activity you applied for.
Leave requests can no longer be edited once they have been submitted on Accent Leave Manager as they are under review/have been approved by your approvers on the basis of the information you have provided.
If there is something wrong with/missing from your leave request, please contact your local Study Leave Coordinator at the Trust or GP Programme Office with the details you need changing (including the breakdown of expenses, e.g. course fees, public transport, accommodation, mileage), and we can amend/add to your leave request as appropriate.
You will receive an automated email and notification on Accent Leave Manager stating your application has been approved or declined. You will be able to monitor the progress of your request at any time on Accent Leave Manager under the My Applications section. You can view and message your approvers by going into the application on Leave Manager and scrolling down to the Approval Chain.
Where provided, approvers’ comments are recorded against their decisions – it is important you read these as there may be some important information for you.
There are two possible reasons for this:
1. TPD approval is only required for applications that are not listed as a curriculum requirement or curricular support.
2. The Educational approver (TPD) doesn't see leave requests until/unless it's been approved by the rota coordinator/JDA/practice manager/local equivalent first. If your TPD can't see your request, it's worth checking that it's been approved by the rota coordinator/etc. first.
Cancelling leave requests should only be done when you are no longer planning to attend the activity you applied for.
In order to cancel a leave request that you have submitted but you will no longer be attending the activity, please follow the below instructions. Please note that cancelled leave requests cannot be reinstated, so be certain that you need to cancel the request:
- Login to your Accent Leave Manager account (at https://accent.hicom.co.uk/Portal/Live/Web/)
- Go to My Applications
- Click on the leave request that you want to cancel to open it
- Scroll to the bottom of the page
- Click Cancel application. This will send a notification to your Cancellation Approver (usually your rota coordinator or local equivalent) to acknowledge the cancellation.
Cancellations must be acknowledged by your leave approvers before they are released back to you.
You can view and message your approvers by going into the application on Accent Leave Manager and scrolling down to the approval chain.
Expenses are marked as 'authorised' when they are approved for payment by your Trust/Programme Office. In order to claim expenses please ensure you follow the appropriate reimbursment process outlined on our home page.
Each Trust and GP Programme Office will have a Study Leave Co-ordinator. A full list of emails and contact phone numbers can be found on our Getting Support page.