I am an academic trainee (ACF or CL) and wish to apply for funding to attend clinical specialty training. Can this be claimed out of the study leave budget?

Yes, you can apply for funding from the study leave budget. For study leave activities that are linked to your clinical progression, if you are employed by a trust you should apply for study leave in the usual way through the medical education team at your trust. If you are employed via a university then you will need to seek approval from your educational supervisor but then apply for funding via your host institution's expenses process, indicating that the expenses are incurred as part of HEE-approved Study Leave. Please see below for more detail on this.

For those activities that link to your academic progression, these should be discussed with your academic supervisor and financial support will come from your academic bursary.

For ACLs employed by an HEI, the process for clinical study leave is as follows:

1. Trainee approaches their educational supervisor to confirm approval to book on a mandatory or optional study leave course related to their clinical progression. They should agree the appropriate approval code from the relevant specialty course list with their educational supervisor. If the trainee wishes to apply for an discretionary course they must follow the standard discretionary course booking process which can be found here. For discretionary courses, the HEE study leave team will issue a unique funding approval code.

2. After attending the course, the trainee should submit their claim via their HEI using the HEI’s agreed local expenses policy – the trainee must include their confirmation email that study leave has been approved (either by their educational supervisor for mandatory/optional courses, or via a HEE approval code for discretionary courses).

3. The HEI then invoices HET for the study leave expenses – the invoice must be titled study leave.

4. HET process invoices monthly.

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