TimeTally - Timesheet Management AppTimeTally
Leave and sickness tracking for UK healthcare

Leave Management for Healthcare Teams

Manage annual leave, sickness absence and staffing coverage across wards, units and clinics. Sick days go on the record instead of on a phone message. Night shifts and long days can be deducted as the hours they actually are. Bank staff accrue holiday from the hours they work while substantive staff take their allowance upfront. Replace paper forms with a leave management system that keeps every rota covered and every absence recorded. Timesheets are included in the same £3 per employee per month, alongside your healthcare timesheets.

Try Free for 14 Days Book a Demo
A nurse selecting days off and a leave type on their phone

“The app is simple to use, reliable, and makes managing holidays, absences, and staff records straightforward. The system has saved us a significant amount of administration time.”

CLI ManchesterJordan Ingoe, CLI Manchester

Staff book leave and report sickness from the same screen

Nurses, healthcare assistants and admin staff pick their days and choose the leave type. Their remaining holiday balance updates as they select. Sickness is a leave type on the same grid, so an absence is logged exactly like a holiday — see the sick leave tracker.

Booking time off in TimeTally: three months of dates, the leave type grid including sick leave, and a submit button

  • Three months on one screen

    Staff can see the whole rota period and book around the weeks that are already busy

  • Tap the days you want

    Selected dates are counted as you go and non-working days are left out

  • Pick the leave type

    Annual, sick, maternity, paternity, TOIL, or a type you added such as study leave

  • Add a reason, then submit

    The request reaches the manager with the dates and the leave type already on it

How TimeTally works for healthcare teams

Everything you need to manage leave across your healthcare organisation, from request to approval to payroll export. Pending requests sit in one list on the manager's dashboard. Each row shows who asked, the dates, how many days it comes to, and which leave type it is. A tick approves it and a cross declines it.

  • One-tap approvals

    Staff submit leave requests online. Managers get notified and approve or reject with one tap — no more paper forms or chasing signatures.

  • Pro-rata entitlements

    Automatically calculate annual leave entitlements for part-time staff, bank workers, and mid-year starters from the allowance you set.

  • Sickness absence records

    Track every sick day with a complete history per employee. Export records for SSP calculations, return-to-work meetings, or HR reviews.
Leave requests Get Started
A ward manager approving a three-day annual leave request, showing the dates, the leave pay and Approve and Reject buttons

Record every sickness absence and see the pattern

Sick leave is one of the six leave types TimeTally starts with, so an absence is recorded rather than remembered. A member of staff who is well enough to use their phone submits it themselves. For anyone who phoned the ward at six in the morning, a manager books it on their behalf — dates that have already passed can be selected — and it goes on the record already approved, with the manager named as the approver.

  • Set whether sickness is paid or unpaid, and whether it comes off the annual leave balance or sits in its own pot. Kept separate, a bad flu week does not cost somebody their summer holiday.
  • Leave analytics total the days by leave type, by department and by individual, with an approval rate and a range from the last month to the last twelve.
  • Set each person's department to their ward or unit and the same breakdown answers which unit is carrying the absence.
  • TimeTally holds the spells and the day counts a Bradford Factor score is worked out from. It does not produce the score, and it does not pay Statutory Sick Pay.
Absence management
Staff rows across a fortnight, each with its own pattern of worked days, booked leave and sickness

Leave types built for healthcare

Healthcare staff need more than just “annual leave” and “sick leave”. With TimeTally, you can create unlimited custom leave types to match your organisation's policies — study leave, mandatory training days, compassionate leave, special leave, or anything else you need. Each type gets its own colour on the team calendar.

  • Colour-coded by absence typeInstantly see whether someone is on annual leave, off sick, or on study leave from the calendar view
  • Paid or unpaid, in or out of the balanceFor each type you set whether it is paid and whether it deducts from the annual leave balance or sits in its own pot
  • Export for payroll and reportingExport leave data via CSV, or sync with Xero or QuickBooks for seamless payroll processing
The leave types list, each type with its own colour and set as paid or unpaid

Clear the requests between rounds

Ward managers and practice leads are rarely at a desk during a shift. The time-off queue and the timesheet queue sit side by side on a phone, so a run of requests can be cleared in the few minutes between handover and the next round.

  • Approve or reject in one tapOpen a request to see the person, their job title, the leave type, the day count and any reason they added before deciding
  • Complete audit trailEvery request, approval, rejection and deletion is logged with a timestamp and the person who made it
  • Check the rota firstBefore approving, see how many staff are already off that week so night and weekend cover is not left short
A member of staff picking days off and a leave type on their phone

Know who is available for every shift

In healthcare, knowing who is available is not a nice-to-have — it is essential for patient safety. TimeTally's “Who's Off” widget gives you an instant snapshot of staff availability so you can plan rotas and arrange cover before gaps become a problem.

Whether you manage a GP surgery, a hospital ward, an outpatient clinic, or a dental practice, having a clear view of who is off and when makes all the difference to service delivery.

  • Use TimeTally alongside your rota. Check the staff holiday tracker before building next week's rota to avoid scheduling staff who are on leave.
  • Booked leave shows on the rota alongside shifts, so whoever writes it sees the gap before publishing rather than after.
  • When a whole clinic closes — a training day, a bank holiday your site does not open on — book it for the selected staff in one go rather than entering it person by person.
Who's off this week widget showing healthcare staff availability

See who is off across your department

The team calendar gives ward managers and department leads a single view of all leave. See annual leave, sick leave, and study leave side by side so you can plan staffing levels with confidence. Filter it down to one department when you only want to see your own ward or unit.

  • Ward-level visibility

    See who is off across your entire ward or department to plan shift coverage effectively

  • All absence types together

    Annual leave, sick leave, study leave, and custom types all visible on one calendar, each in its own colour

  • Avoid staffing shortfalls

    Check the calendar before approving leave to make sure you have enough staff on every shift

  • Check from anywhere

    View the team calendar and approve requests on the go via the iOS app — no need to be at a desk
Three month team calendar showing how many healthcare staff are booked off on each day

Every leave scenario a healthcare provider has to handle

Tap a card to read the detail.

Start your free trial

14-day free trial · No credit card needed

Watch a Leave Request Go From Phone to Approved

A short loop of the leave screens. A member of staff picks their days, chooses a leave type and submits. The request then appears in the manager's time-off queue, is opened for the detail, and is approved with one tap.

Back

Book Time Off

Jul 2026

MTWTFSS12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031

Aug 2026

MTWTFSS12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031

Sep 2026

MTWTFSS123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930

3 days selected· excl. weekends

Family holiday, flights booked ✈️

Submit Request Submitted

Leave Allowance

18

days left

Annual Leave Balance

18 days

Annual Leave Used

7 days

All Departments
Jun 2026
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
T
AR1

Amelia Roberts

Kitchen

JK2

James Kelly

Front of house

MP3

Maya Patel

Front of house

PS4

Priya Shah

Kitchen

TW5

Tom Wilson

Bar

Timesheet Requests

1
TW

Tom Wilson

37h 30m · Week of Jun 1

Time-off Requests

2
MP

Maya Patel

3d · Annual Leave

PS

Priya Shah

5d · Annual Leave

MP

Maya Patel

Front of house

Pending Approved
Annual Leave
3days

From

Thu, Aug 14

2026

To

Mon, Aug 18

2026

Notes

Family holiday, flights booked

Approve Approved
Reject

Common leave management problems in healthcare

If any of these sound familiar, it is time to replace paper forms and spreadsheets with a proper staff holiday tracker. If you run a residential or domiciliary care service rather than a clinical one, the care home leave management page is the better fit.

Forms

Paper leave request forms

Leave requests are submitted on paper forms that get lost in pigeonholes. Nobody knows if a request has been approved until they chase it up in person.

  • Requests arrive in one list with the person, the dates, the day count and the leave type on each row
  • Every request, approval, rejection and deletion is stored with a timestamp and the person who made it
Cover

Shift coverage gaps

Managers approve leave without checking who else is already off. The result: understaffed shifts and last-minute scrambles for cover.

  • Open a request and the team calendar shows who is already booked off on the same dates
  • TimeTally shows you who is off; it does not cap how many people can be off at once, so the decision stays with the ward manager
Fairness

Unfair leave allocation

Without visibility of the full picture, the same staff always miss out on popular holiday periods. There is no transparent, first-come-first-served system.

  • You can optionally let staff see who else has booked time off, so requests are made around what is already taken
  • A rejection can carry a written reason, and the member of staff can resubmit different dates without starting again
Absence

Sickness absence goes untracked

Sick days are reported by phone call and noted on paper. Building an accurate absence history for any individual staff member is nearly impossible.

  • Sick leave is one of the six leave types TimeTally seeds, so an absence is recorded rather than remembered
  • A manager can book the absence on that person's behalf, including a date that has already passed, and it goes on the record already approved
Contracts

Pro-rata confusion for part-timers

Calculating correct entitlements for part-time nurses, healthcare assistants, and bank staff is done manually and frequently gets it wrong.

  • Contracted hours are set for each day of the week per person, so a three-day healthcare assistant is not costed like a five-day practice manager
  • Bank staff can be set to accrue as hours are worked, at 12.07% by default, while substantive staff take their allowance upfront
Wards

No department-wide view

Ward managers cannot see leave across the whole department. Decisions are made in isolation, leading to clashes and staffing shortfalls.

  • Set each person's department to their ward or unit and filter the team calendar down to it
  • Leave analytics break the same data down by department, by leave type and by individual
Get Started

The Two Leave Settings a Healthcare Provider Actually Changes

Most of TimeTally works out of the box. These two are worth ten minutes on the day you set it up, because they are the two that shift-based healthcare teams get wrong.

Leave basis

Deduct a long day or a night shift as the hours it really is.

TimeTally prices a day of leave in one of three ways. On the default, a day off costs one day of allowance whatever the shift was. On the second, it costs the hours that person's working pattern says they work that day. On the third, it costs the paid hours of the shift actually rostered for that date.

The third option exists because rotas run two-week, four-week and monthly cycles that a flat seven-day working pattern cannot express. Against a 7.5 hour standard day, a 12 hour long day costs 1.6 days of allowance and a 4 hour clinic costs 0.53. Take three long days off and you have used 4.8 days, not 3.

Rota-based deduction needs the rota turned on. Hours-based deduction from the working pattern does not, so it is available whether or not you build rotas in TimeTally.

Balances are held in days or in hours, whichever you choose, with a standard day of 7.5 hours and rounding to the nearest half day.

Leave year and carryover

Run the leave year from 1 April, then decide what carries.

The leave year runs January to December unless you change it. Set the reset date to 31 March and the year starts the day after it, on 1 April, which is the year most NHS and private providers already work to.

Carryover is off by default. Turn it on and you can cap the number of days that carry, and set an expiry so carried days are taken in the first weeks of the new year rather than all at once in the summer.

Negative balances are off by default too. Turn them on, with a limit, for the newly qualified starter who joins in November and needs a week at Christmas before they have earned it.

Bank holidays block out automatically for England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, and you decide whether they sit inside the allowance or on top of it. Sites that stay open on them can turn the automatic block off.

How leave years, carryover and balances work

Correct entitlement for substantive, bank and agency staff

A substantive nurse on a fixed contract, a part-time healthcare assistant on three days, and a bank worker who picks up shifts when they suit all have different holiday entitlements. TimeTally works out the right figure for each person from the allowance you set and their working pattern, including mid-year starters and leavers.

The allowance is yours to set. TimeTally starts at 25 days plus 8 bank holidays and an admin can change either figure, so an organisation offering more than the statutory minimum sets its own number once and pro-rates from it.

Use our zero-hours holiday calculator to check entitlements for irregular-hours staff, or the pro-rata holiday calculator for part-time employees. TimeTally handles both automatically once each person's working pattern is set up.

UK law reminder:bank and agency workers are entitled to paid holiday. For leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, irregular-hours workers accrue it at 12.07% of the hours they work in each pay period. TimeTally applies that rate for you: set the accrual method to hours worked, keep 12.07% or set your own figure, and each approved timesheet adds leave to that person's balance. If a timesheet is rejected, the accrual it created is reversed. TimeTally does not work out a 52-week average of pay — holiday pay rates stay with your payroll.

An employee's leave allowance card showing the days left, the annual leave balance and the days already used
UK compliance

Sickness Absence and Holiday Records for a UK Healthcare Provider

TimeTally is a leave and absence tracking tool, not a compliance system. It keeps the record that every one of these obligations rests on. Here is what the data supports in a clinical setting, and what it does not do.

Statutory Entitlement

Every worker in a UK healthcare organisation gets 5.6 weeks of paid holiday, which is 28 days for someone on a five-day week. You set the full-time allowance for your organisation; TimeTally starts at 25 days plus 8 bank holidays, and an admin can change either figure. TimeTally then works out each person's share of it from their working pattern and their start date. It does not decide the statutory figure for you.

Sickness Absence and SSP

Sick leave is one of the six leave types TimeTally seeds, so a healthcare assistant ringing in at six in the morning is recorded rather than remembered. Every absence carries the person, the dates and the day count, and sits in the same history as their annual leave. TimeTally does not calculate or pay Statutory Sick Pay — use the statutory sick pay calculator for that, and the sick leave tracker for how absence recording works.

Absence Patterns and the Bradford Factor

Leave analytics total absence by leave type, by department and by individual over the last one, three, six or twelve months. That is the data an attendance review runs on: how many separate spells, and how many days each. TimeTally does not produce a Bradford Factor score and does not trigger a trigger point. Work the score out from the export, or with our calculator, and keep the judgement with the manager.

Bank and Agency Staff

Bank workers are irregular-hours workers. For leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024 they accrue holiday at 12.07% of the hours worked in each pay period, and that is the rate TimeTally applies when a person's accrual method is set to hours worked. The rate is editable, the method is set per person, and it needs timesheets switched on because the accrual is written when a timesheet is approved. The zero-hours holiday calculator checks a figure by hand.

Records You Can Produce

Every request, approval, rejection and deletion is stored with a timestamp and the person who made it. Balances, entitlement and days taken are held per employee per leave year. Leave exports as CSV, or straight into Xero or QuickBooks alongside timesheets. When an inspection, a grievance or a final holiday pay dispute asks what someone booked and what they had left, the record is there rather than in a folder in the office.

What TimeTally Does Not Do

It does not calculate holiday pay from a 52-week average of earnings — that is a payroll job. It does not cap how many people can be off at once, and there is no blackout or closure-date feature; it shows you who is already off and the decision stays with you. It does not chase anyone automatically: there is no scheduled reminder, only a manual nudge you send to one person. And there are two access levels, admin and employee, with no per-ward or per-department level in between, so anyone you make an admin sees the whole organisation's leave. Pay details can be hidden from an approver separately.

Simple, Transparent Pricing

One price. Every feature. No surprises. A ward team of 40 pays £120 a month.

£3/employee/month

Billed monthly, incl. VAT. Cancel anytime.

Sick leave tracking
Team calendar view
Unlimited leave types
Timesheet tracking included
Get Started

No credit card required

Book a Demo

In short

What is leave and sickness absence management software for healthcare?

Leave and sickness absence management software for healthcare records who has booked time off, who is off sick, how much holiday each person has left, and who is already off before a manager approves the next request. TimeTally does this for UK hospitals, clinics, GP surgeries and private healthcare providers from £3 per employee per month. Staff book from the iOS app or any browser, in hours, half days or full days. Sickness is a leave type, so a manager can log an absence on someone's behalf and it goes on the record already approved. A day off can be deducted as a flat day, as the hours in that person's working pattern, or as the paid hours of the shift actually rostered. Substantive staff take their allowance upfront and bank staff accrue at 12.07% of the hours they work. The leave year can start on any date, so 1 April to 31 March is a one-off setting. Leave analytics break absence down by type, by department and by individual. Timesheet tracking is included in the same price.

Price
£3 per employee a month
Sickness
Its own leave type and record
Bank staff
12.07% of hours worked
Shifts
Deduct the rostered hours
Leave year
Any start date, 1 April included

Frequently Asked Questions

Can TimeTally handle different leave types for clinical and non-clinical staff?

Yes. TimeTally lets you create unlimited custom leave types, so you can set up separate categories for annual leave, study leave, compassionate leave, sickness absence, and any other type your organisation needs. Each leave type has its own colour on the team calendar, making it easy to distinguish between absence reasons at a glance.

How does TimeTally help with shift coverage when staff are on leave?

The team calendar shows all approved leave across your department in one view. Managers can see exactly who is off on any given day, making it straightforward to identify coverage gaps and plan accordingly. You can filter by team or department to focus on your ward or unit. TimeTally does not enforce a minimum staffing level or a cap on how many people can be off at once — it shows you the picture and the decision stays with you.

Does TimeTally calculate pro-rata entitlement for part-time healthcare staff?

Yes. You set the full-time allowance for your organisation — the default is 25 days plus 8 bank holidays — and TimeTally works out each person's share of it from their working pattern. Whether someone works 3 days a week or has variable hours, the system calculates their proportion, including the option to count bank holidays inside the allowance or add them on top. Mid-year starters and leavers are pro-rated from their start date.

Can staff submit leave requests from their phone?

Yes. TimeTally has an iOS app that lets employees submit leave requests from anywhere. Managers receive a notification and can approve or reject with one tap. This is particularly useful for healthcare staff who may not have regular access to a desktop computer during shifts.

How does TimeTally handle sickness absence tracking for healthcare teams?

Sick leave is one of the leave types TimeTally seeds, and you can add more of your own. For each type you set its colour, whether it is paid or unpaid, and whether it comes off the annual leave balance or sits in its own pot — so sickness does not eat into holiday. Every sickness absence is recorded against the employee's profile, giving you a complete history. You can export this data via CSV for payroll, or sync with Xero or QuickBooks for seamless processing.

Is TimeTally suitable for NHS trusts and private healthcare providers?

TimeTally is designed for UK businesses of all sizes, including healthcare organisations. It handles bank holidays for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, pro-rata calculations, custom leave types, and a leave year that can start on any date you choose. At £3 per employee per month with no setup fees, it is a cost-effective solution for GP practices, clinics, dental surgeries, and hospital departments.

Can TimeTally be used as a sick leave management system?

Yes. Sickness is recorded as a leave type, so every absence carries the person, the dates, the day count and the reason if one was given. Managers can log an absence on behalf of someone who phoned in, and the record is created already approved. Leave analytics then show total days by leave type, by department and by individual, with a date range from the last month to the last twelve. TimeTally records the absence; it does not calculate Statutory Sick Pay and it does not score attendance for you.

Our leave year runs 1 April to 31 March. Can TimeTally do that?

Yes. Set the annual leave reset date to 31 March and the leave year starts the day after it, on 1 April, and ends on 31 March the following year. Any reset date works, so an organisation running to a financial year or a training year does not have to pretend it runs January to December. You then choose separately whether unused days carry into the next year, how many, and whether carried days expire after a number of days.

Does TimeTally calculate the Bradford Factor?

No. TimeTally holds the absence record the Bradford Factor is calculated from — the number of separate spells and the total days for each person — but it does not produce the score itself. Use our Bradford Factor calculator alongside it, or export the leave data as CSV and run it in your own attendance review.

Is there a sick leave calendar for a ward or unit?

Yes. Sickness is a leave type, so it appears on the same team calendar as annual leave — a sick leave calendar and a holiday calendar in one view. Filter by department to see a single ward, and the leave analytics break absence down by type, department, person and month.

Does TimeTally do family medical leave tracking?

It tracks any leave type you create, including family and medical absence. Maternity, paternity and parental leave are configured with their own duration and paid weeks; anything else — carer's leave, compassionate leave, long-term medical absence — is a custom type you name yourself, set as paid or unpaid, and choose whether it deducts from the annual balance.

Still have a question? See all FAQs

Related Resources

Calculators and guides for hospitals, clinics and healthcare providers

Sick Leave Tracker

Record a phoned-in absence and see the pattern behind itLearn more

Absence Management Software

Absence reporting across wards, units and clinical teamsLearn more

Statutory Sick Pay Calculator

Check SSP for a member of staff who is off sick, which TimeTally does not payOpen calculator

Bradford Factor Calculator

Score short, frequent absence spells from the record TimeTally keepsOpen calculator

Pro-Rata Holiday Calculator

Entitlement for part-time patterns and mid-year starters and leaversOpen calculator

Healthcare Timesheets

The hours side of the same £3, and where bank staff accrual comes fromLearn more

Also Explore

Leave Management SoftwareStaff Holiday TrackerAnnual Leave TrackerFree Leave TrackerSick Leave TrackerCompassionate Leave TrackerUnpaid Leave TrackerLeave Management for CharitiesLeave Management for Cleaning Services

Explore TimeTally

Leave Tracking SoftwareLeave Request SoftwareCare Home LeaveHealthcare Time TrackingRota PlannerAll Industries

Better leave management for your healthcare team.

Try TimeTally free for 14 days. Manage annual leave, track sickness absence, deduct long days as the hours they really are, and keep your staffing levels on track — all in one simple tool.

Book a Demo Get Started

No credit card required · Free 14-day trial · Cancel anytime