Free hospital accommodation for pre-registration doctors
Free hospital accommodation for pre-registration doctors
Guidance from the BMA junior doctors committee
October 2007
Earlier in this year, the Government amended the Medical Act (1983). This change in the law removed the requirement for Foundation House Officer 1 doctors to be compulsorily resident in the hospital. With statutory residency no longer a contractual requirement, trusts will in future no longer need to provide free accommodation to FHO1 doctors. However, the Junior Doctors Committee (JDC) has discussed this issue with NHS Employers and agreed that the existing arrangements for free accommodation should remain in place until at least 1 August 2008. NHS Employers has therefore requested that employers honour agreements to offer free accommodation during 2007/08.
This issue has also been raised with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, and an agreement reached that FHO1 doctors should face no tax liability on their free accommodation this year - a risk once free accommodation was no longer a statutory requirement. This dispensation shall also last until 1 August 2008. After this point, FHO1 doctors will be liable to pay tax on any free accommodation they receive as a benefit of their employment. Further details of this liability, if applicable, will be available in due course.
The JDC has made strong representations to the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Review Body for the recognition of the future loss of this contractual benefit for FHO1 doctors. The Review Body will not publish its’ recommendations until spring 2008, but the JDC will keep junior doctors up to date on any developments regarding the future of FHO1 accommodation.
The following guidance is available on NHS Employers' website.
“NHS Employers has just been informed that the commencement order bringing into effect the repeal of ss10 - 13 of the Medical Act 1983 and the insertion of s10A has now been made, and that the new section 10A comes into force on 1st August 2007. The effect of this amendment will be that from 1st August 2007 the statutory requirement for Foundation Year 1 doctors to be contractually resident in or conveniently near to the hospital or health centre where they are working will cease.
Given the short notice given of this change and in line with guidance given by the Department of Health, NHS Employers strongly encourages trusts to maintain existing accommodation arrangements in the period until 1 August 2008 under which these doctors are provided with accommodation at no charge to facilitate their rotations. This is particularly important given the scale of other changes to the recruitment process and to medical training in general in 2007. NHS Employers does not expect that this will be an issue for the majority of Foundation Year 1 trainees who will by now have a contractual commitment from their employer for this accommodation. NHS Employers will be discussing the arrangements for future years with the BMA.”
Full details of the agreement reached with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs can be found on the NHS Employers website.