Mr D Hughes v East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust — 2024

The tribunal considered a complaint of unlawful deduction from wages under section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The claimant said he had been underpaid for annual leave taken on 3, 4, 24 and 25 June 2023 because, if he had worked those shifts, he would have received unsocial hours enhancements. The respondent’s case was that he had been paid correctly under the contractual provisions governing holiday pay.

The tribunal found that the issue turned on the proper interpretation of the contractual terms, in particular section 13.9 of the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service and paragraph 4.1 of the EAST24 Policy on Annual Leave, which were to be read together. Those terms provided that annual leave pay included regularly paid supplements and that staff on annual leave would be paid an average of their unsocial hours earnings over the previous 13 weeks.

The tribunal rejected the claimant’s interpretation that he should receive the exact unsocial hours enhancement he would have earned on the leave days had he been at work. It held that the claimant was seeking to import a different term from the one actually agreed, and that he had not established any unlawful deduction from wages. The complaint was therefore dismissed.