An employee who is on long term sickness absence might wish to book a time of yearly leave to get full compensation for that period, for instance in the event that they have acquired all qualification to sick pay or is getting just statutory sick pay.
The law doesn't keep workers from taking yearly leave while on sickness absence. It would generally be to an employer’s advantage to consent to a worker's request to take yearly leave, to stay away from them accumulating huge amounts of leave while on sickness absence. In the event that it denies the request, the employer would need to permit the worker to take the accumulated yearly leave on their re-visitation of work (regardless of whether this implies conveying it over to the following leave year), or pay the employee the gathered holiday pay on end of employment.
Further, there is a danger that the refusal of a request for yearly leave when the representative is missing from work could be a breach of the implied term of shared trust and certainty. The employer would not have the option to argue that it needed to deny the request to keep up with maintaining staffing levels.
If an employee informs you they have become sick during a period of annual leave they have the right to have this period converted to sickness instead of holiday. Employees still accrue annual leave at the same rate whilst off sick. If an employee is unable to take annual leave within the holiday year due to sickness, employers must allow employees to carry this leave over to the new holiday year.
Numerous employers won't permit taking holiday rather than sick leave for various reasons. It makes it harder for managers to follow the frequency of absences if times of sickness have been changed over to holiday. At times, taking holiday rather than sick leave can empower the worker to meet all requirements for reward's they would not in any case have gotten in case they were off sick. Additionally, the reason for annual leave is to have a time of rest from work thus employers can't be sure employees are getting a rest in case they know the worker is sick because of a request to changing their sickness absence to holiday pay
If you still seem to be a bit confused, you can check out the Holiday Entitlements and you’ll get a clear idea of the facts of your right holiday entitlements.