Leave Management¶

This guide covers how to review, approve, deny, and manage leave requests across your practice.

Overview¶

The leave management interface lets you see every leave request from all clinicians, review them with quota and staffing information, and approve or deny them. You can also create leave on behalf of clinicians, cancel existing requests, and manage sick leave records.

Access it from the admin dashboard under Leave Requests.

Leave requests move through these statuses:

Status	Meaning
Requested	Submitted by a clinician, awaiting admin review
Approved	Admin has approved; shifts are removed and staffing alerts refreshed
Denied	Admin has denied; denial reason is recorded
Cancelled	Request withdrawn by clinician or cancelled by admin

Some leave types are auto-processed when a clinician submits them. Annual leave requests that pass all validation checks are auto-approved. Requests that would exceed quota, and all study leave and coroner's court requests, always require manual admin review.

Viewing Leave Requests¶

The leave requests page shows a chronological list of all requests across all clinicians.

Filtering¶

Use the status dropdown at the top of the page to filter by:

Requested -- Pending requests needing your attention.
Approved -- Confirmed leave, including auto-approved.
Denied -- Rejected requests with denial reasons displayed inline.
Cancelled -- Withdrawn requests.

Click Apply Filters to apply, or Clear Filters to reset the view.

What you see for each request¶

Each row shows:

Clinician name and leave type (Annual Leave, Day Not Working, Study Leave, and so on).
Status badge with colour coding (teal for approved, red for denied, orange for pending, grey for cancelled).
Date range of the requested leave.
Timestamp of when the request was made.
Denial reason, if the request was denied.
Actions: Review (for pending requests) or Cancel (for pending or approved requests).

The Approval Workflow¶

When you click Review on a pending request, the system presents a detailed approval page with everything you need to make a decision.

Step 1: Check the request details¶

The top of the approval page shows who is requesting what, and the full date range. Verify that the dates and leave type are correct.

Step 2: Review the quota panel¶

For annual leave requests, the quota panel on the left side of the page shows:

Entitled -- Total annual leave entitlement for the clinician's working term.
Approved -- Amount already approved for this term.
Pending -- Amount in other pending requests (including this one).
Remaining -- What is left after approved leave is subtracted.
This Request -- How much this specific request costs against the quota.

The panel also includes a period breakdown (for example January-July and August-December) showing entitlement, used, and remaining for each half of the working term. Any manual adjustments to the quota are noted at the bottom.

If this request would push the clinician over quota, the remaining figure appears in red and you will need to confirm a quota override to approve it (see below).

For non-quota leave types such as Days Not Working, the panel shows a period-based count of existing approved requests instead.

Step 3: Check the staffing coverage analysis¶

Below the quota panel, the Staffing Coverage Analysis section shows a traffic-light assessment for each working day in the leave period. This tells you what happens to staffing levels if you approve the request. See the Coverage Simulation section below for a full explanation of each colour.

Step 4: Review the calendar context¶

The right side of the approval page shows a week-by-week calendar spanning the leave dates plus one week of context on either side. Use it to see:

Existing shifts for the requesting clinician (highlighted with an orange marker).
Other clinicians' shifts and leave on the same dates.
Staffing levels per day (shift count versus minimum, colour-coded).
Bank holidays marked with a "BH" badge.
Staffing alerts (warning icons for days already below minimum).

Click on any day in the calendar to see available clinicians for that date in a sidebar panel.

Step 5: Approve or deny¶

At the bottom of the left column you will find the action form:

To approve: 1. Click Approve Request. 2. If the request exceeds quota, you must first check the Confirm override box. This records that you knowingly approved beyond the clinician's entitlement. 3. The system removes all of the clinician's shifts on the leave dates, refreshes staffing alerts, runs the coverage simulation, and sends an approval email to the clinician. 4. If the coverage simulation results in red or yellow status, a staffing alert email is also sent to operational notification recipients.

To deny: 1. Enter a Denial Reason in the text area. 2. Click Deny Request. 3. The denial reason is stored on the request and emailed to the clinician.

Coverage Simulation¶

Every leave approval triggers a coverage simulation that predicts the staffing impact of removing the requesting clinician from the rota on each affected date.

What the simulation checks¶

For each working day in the leave period, the simulation:

Counts how many clinicians are currently scheduled (excluding the requesting clinician).
Determines the minimum staffing level for that day from system configuration (accounting for bank holidays and post-bank-holiday rules).
If the current count meets or exceeds the minimum, the day is classified as green.
If not, it identifies which other clinicians could potentially cover: they must be active, have a salaried or partner working term covering the date, not already be on approved leave or sick leave, and not already have a shift that day.
Checks each candidate's weekly shift count against their maximum shifts per week limit.
Classifies the day based on the available candidate pool.

Traffic light classifications¶

Colour	Label	Meaning
Green	Good Coverage	Staffing is already at or above minimum, or there are enough available clinicians well within their weekly limits to cover the gap.
Yellow	Tight Coverage	Coverage is possible but requires clinicians who are already at or near their weekly shift maximum. The rota can function but has no slack.
Red	Insufficient Coverage	There are not enough available clinicians to reach minimum staffing. The current count, minimum required, and shortfall are shown.

The overall status shown at the top of the panel is the worst status across all dates. A single red day makes the whole request red.

Interpreting the results¶

The staffing coverage analysis is advisory. It is there to help you make an informed decision. You can approve leave regardless of the traffic light status.

When to approve green requests: These are straightforward. The rota absorbs the absence without issue.

When to approve yellow requests: Consider the context. If the leave is far enough ahead that a future rota generation will rebalance shifts, approval is usually fine. If the leave is imminent, check whether the covering clinicians are being stretched too thin across the week.

When to approve red requests: These require a judgement call. You are accepting that the practice will be understaffed on the affected dates. Check whether you can arrange locum cover, whether other clinicians might swap shifts to help, or whether the shortfall is acceptable for a short period.

Cancelling Leave Requests¶

Admins can cancel both pending and approved leave requests from the leave requests list. Click the Cancel button on any request with a status of Requested or Approved.

Cancelling a pending request¶

This simply removes the request from the queue. The clinician is notified by email that their request was cancelled.

Cancelling an approved request¶

The system warns you before you proceed. Cancelling approved leave:

Sets the request status to Cancelled.
Removes any leave-related shifts (study leave shifts or coroner's court shifts that were created at approval time).
Sends cancellation emails to both admin recipients and the clinician.

Note that the clinician's original working shifts are not restored. They were deleted at approval time and remain as gaps. The next rota generation cycle will fill them.

Adding Leave on Behalf of a Clinician¶

Use the Add Leave on Behalf form (accessible from the leave requests page) to create leave for a clinician directly. This is useful when a clinician cannot access the system, or when recording leave arranged verbally.

Select the clinician from the dropdown.
Choose the leave type.
Set the start date and end date.
If the clinician has pinned shifts in the date range, decide whether to check Also cancel pinned shifts. Pinned shifts are normally protected from deletion. Only check this if the leave absolutely takes priority (for example, an emergency that overrides a previously locked-in session).
Click Add Leave (Auto-Approved).

The request is created and immediately approved through the same processor that handles normal approvals. Quota validation is enforced, shifts are removed, and staffing alerts are refreshed.

Leave Adjustments¶

Leave adjustments let you manually increase or decrease a clinician's leave entitlement. They are the only mechanism for carry-over; the system does not automatically carry forward unused leave from one working term to the next.

When adjustments are needed¶

Carry-over: At the start of a new working term, create a positive adjustment to carry over unused entitlement from the previous term.
Corrections: Fix an entitlement that was set incorrectly, or compensate for leave that was recorded under the wrong type.
Discretionary additions: Grant extra leave for exceptional circumstances (for example, bereavement, Jury service, or a practice-agreed special arrangement).
Deductions: Reduce entitlement if a clinician has taken unpaid leave or has had leave clawed back.

How to create an adjustment¶

Leave adjustments are managed through the working term for the clinician. Navigate to the clinician's detail page and find their current working term. Add a new adjustment with:

Amount -- A positive number adds entitlement; a negative number subtracts it. The unit depends on the working term type (weeks for partners, days for salaried clinicians).
Reason -- A free-text explanation of why the adjustment is being made. This is mandatory.

Audit trail¶

Every adjustment records the username of the admin who created it and the timestamp. The quota panel on the approval page shows the total adjustment amount so you can see at a glance how the entitlement has been modified. Adjustment history is preserved on the working term and cannot be deleted.

Sick Leave¶

Sick leave is handled separately from other leave types. Clinicians cannot submit sick leave through the self-service interface. It is recorded by admins using the Sick Leave Records page.

The sick leave workflow¶

When a clinician reports sick, go to the admin dashboard and navigate to Sick Leave Records (or use the link from the clinician's detail page).
Click Record Sick Leave and select the clinician.
Enter the start date. Leave the end date blank if the clinician has not yet returned.
Set the status to Active.
Add internal notes if needed. Notes are not visible to the clinician.
Click Record Sick Leave to save.

When the clinician returns:

Find the active record in the Sick Leave Records list (filter by status "Active" or by clinician).
Click Edit.
Set the end date to their last day off sick.
Change the status to Returned.
Save the record.

If a record was created in error, edit it and set the status to Cancelled.

Sick Leave Records list¶

The Sick Leave Records page shows a table of all records across all clinicians. Filter by status or clinician to narrow down the list. Each row shows the clinician, date range, status (Active, Returned, or Cancelled), duration in days, and the admin who recorded it.

Active sick leave with no end date displays "Ongoing" in red.

Sick leave and the rota¶

Active sick leave is factored into the coverage simulation. When checking whether other clinicians can cover a leave request, the simulation excludes anyone who has an active sick leave record overlapping that date. This means the simulation gives you a realistic picture of who is actually available.