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Section 39 - Travel

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There are two routes of entry into the course, one for trainees who originate from within the EU, and the other for those who are based outside the EU. Although all trainees follow exactly the same programme, there is a difference in employment status. Students from the EU are funded by NHS London and are employed through the NHS); those trainees from outside the EU will have alternative sources of funding, and are not employed by the NHS.

The course is only able to pay travel expenses for trainees who are employed through the NHS.
General information about claims

Trainees can claim for travel within the northern part of the London SHA Region, or for travel to a placement outside this area to which they they have been allocated by the course. If undertaking travel outside of the Region for other reasons, trainees should discuss this with the Placement Administrator to check whether a claim can be made.

All forms of transport can be claimed for - public transport, car, motorbike and bicycle. Trainees can also claim for parking if using a car while carrying out clinical duties, or the placement is inaccessible or difficult to reach by public transport (i.e. where there is a requirement to use a car in order to carry out their clinical duties).

Trainees can only claim for the congestion charge if their clinical duties require them to travel within the charging zone. This means that the charge cannot be claimed simply because the placement lies within the zone. Trainees would need to show that they had to carry out clinical activities which necessitated travel by car within the zone (for example, visiting patients at their homes).

Taxis

In line with standard NHS practice, trainees are NOT entitled to claim for taxis. This ruling is varied only under exceptional circumstance, and is never varied retrospectively. If supervisors suggest clinical work that involves taking a taxi, clear this with college first; it is very unlikely that the course would agree to pay.

In special circumstances consideration will be given to paying for travel by taxi if this is justified in advance, and where it is clear why public transport is not an option. Examples include individuals with a disability or injury that makes tube/bus access difficult or impossible.

Travel connected to research

The procedures for claiming travel for research purposes are essentially the same as for placement, and should be included as part of the usual travel claim.

Principles underpinning travel claims

1) The NHS does not pay its staff to travel to their place of work (usually referred to as their ‘base’). 

For the purpose of calculating travel claims, a trainee’s base is the college they attend. So - in everything that follows, ‘base’ means UCL.

Trainees are not paid travel expenses for their travel to and from UCL. This is because UCL is regarded as the base - as above, the NHS does not pay trainees to travel to their place of work.

2) The NHS does pay employees travel expenses when they are ‘out of pocket’ as a consequence of carrying out their regular duties.

Although attendance at college is also part of regular duties, for the purposes of calculating travel claims the focus is on travel to placement.

The basic question is whether a trainee is spending more to travel to placement than to travel to base – i.e. whether the trainee is ‘out of pocket’ as a consequence of carrying out their duties.

Calculating entitlement to travel expenses – the ‘out-of-pocket’ test

Calculating travel expenses involves determining whether the trainee is ‘out of pocket’. If so, the additional expense can be claimed; if not, a claim cannot be made.

The basic principle is very straightforward.

1) Calculate the actual daily cost of travel from home to college (‘base’), based on using the usual mode of transport

2) Calculate the actual daily cost of travel from home to placement, based on using the usual mode of transport

If (2) is greater than (1), the trainee is out of pocket, and can claim the additional amount being spent to get to placement. For example, if the travel to placement costs £2 more a day than travel to UCL then £2 can be claimed.

Putting this into practice

In outline the ‘out of pocket’ principle is fairly straightforward, and most trainees should have little difficulty calculating their entitlement. However, there are circumstances where it can be a little more complicated; the examples that follow cover most eventualities. Before looking at these, it is helpful to consider some more principles.

1) Usually the journeys compared in the ‘out of pocket’ test should be a ‘like-for-like’ comparison (i.e. comparing the same mode of transport and the same basis for calculating fares or mileages).

2) If the journeys being compared do not use the same mode of transport there needs to be a reason for this. For example, it would be very unusual to travel to UCL by car, but it might be sensible to use a car to travel to placement. If this is the case the cost of a tube journey to UCL can be compared with a car journey to placement.

3) The ‘out of pocket’ test should not be artificially manipulated in order to minimise the cost of home-base travel (with an eye to ensuring that home to placement travel costs exceed home to placement costs). For example, he ‘out of pocket’ test cannot be carried out by comparing the price of a bus journey from home to UCL with the price of a tube journey from home to placement.  This would be construed as artificially lowering the home-base cost.

4) There might be circumstances where someone has a home-base travel cost that is genuinely low.  For example, they might live close enough to UCL to walk, or their usual mode of transport to college is by bicycle, while home-placement travel is undertaken by tube. If this is the case the trainee should advise college, so that their forms are not confused by UCL or by NHS Trust auditors as an attempt to artificially manipulate the claim (as in (3) immediately above).

Adding the cost of travel once on placement

Once a trainee has arrived at placement there may well be journeys that undertake in order to fulfil their clinical duties. The trainee is eligible to be paid for this travel (though if travelling on public transport there will be a cap on payment, as described below).

As an example: The placement is at Northwick Park, and the trainee is travelling by car. During the day a further 2 miles are travelled to a mental health unit. From there there is a  visit to a patient at their home, and then a return to Northwick Park. All this travel can be claimned for – if undertaken by car or motorbike it would be 2 + 3 + 4 miles = 9 miles. 

travel

Daily caps and claims for travel once arrived on placement

Once arrived on placement a trainee can charge the actual cost of clinically-related travel (for example, travel to a local clinic, or to a client’s home, and so on) – the computation of out of pocket expenses is not required.

However, trainees should note that that using public transport the actual cost of travel is capped - whether using an Oyster travel card or an Oyster pay as you go card there is a daily cap (equivalent to the cost of a daily travel card).

This means that a claim cannot be made for any one day that exceeds the daily cap. This might seem obvious, but consider the following:

Trainee A lives in Brixton and is on placement in Edgware. It is assumed that they are using an Oyster pay as you go card:

Once Trainee A arrives on placement they can charge the actual cost of clinically-related travel (for example, travel to a local clinic, or to a client’s home, and so on). However, they are travelling on an Oyster card, so the actual cost of the whole day’s travel cannot be greater than the daily cap (since this is the maximum amount that they would be charged). Just to make this clearer with a slightly unlikely scenario:

After Trainee A arrives at Edgware they make 5 return journeys to Colindale on the tube. Computed individually at the pay as you go rate, each journey costs £1.40 single, so in theory that adds up to £14.00.

When Trainee A makes a claim for the day, they might think that they can claim their out of pocket expense for travel from home to placement (£3.20), plus £14 for travel once they arrive on placement, making a total claim of £17.20. 

However, the daily cap (which, in reality, is what determines their actual spend for that day’s travel) for zones 1-5 (including peak time travel) is £15[1], so that is the maximum that can be claimed (because that is also the maximum that Trainee A would have actually spent).

Travel Cards (Oyster weekly/ monthly/ annual)

Trainees cannot base a travel claim on the use of a weekly/ monthly/ annual  Oyster travel card. The reason for this is that these cards allow travel at evenings and weekends, and the NHS travel regulations make it clear that this ‘benefit in kind’ is not permissible (this follows from the  principle that the NHS will not pay for travel on non-NHS business).

A travel card can be purchased and used to travel from home to UCL. In many cases this card will cover travel from home to placement, and hence trainees are not ‘out of pocket’, and will not submit a travel claim.

If travel to placement means that the “home to placement” journey is longer than the journey from “home to UCL”, trainees should not purchase a travel card that covers this additional distance. An example should make this clearer.

Trainee B lives in Brixton (Zone 2) and has a weekly travel card for zone 1-2 (which covers travel to UCL). Trainee B is then allocated a placement in Edgware (Zone 5).

Purchasing a Zone 1-5 travel card is not advised, as Trainee B would not be able to use this to compute travel claims. Instead Trainee B should continue to purchase a zone 1-2 travel card and follow the instructions immediately below.

Computing the out of pocket test when a travel card is used for travel from home to UCL

Oyster Travel Cards allow travel within a set number of zones (e.g. Zone 1 to 3). If travelling beyond these zones then the Oyster card automatically adds an extension fare, and this is recorded on printouts which can be obtained from tube travel offices (these printouts then constitute evidence of travel when  claims are submitted).

So actually the procedure is quite simple. If the trainee has an Oyster travel card that covers them for travel between home-UCL, and travel to the placement involves travel outside the zones covered by the travel card, the claim is made for the extension fare.

Again, imagine you live in Brixton (Zone 2) and have a weekly travel card for zone 1-2 (which covers your travel to UCL). You are on placement in Edgware (Zone 5), and use your travel card for this journey. This means that on the days you travel to placement you are automatically charged the extension fare. This extension fare can be claimed as your ‘out of pocket’ expense (and as it will appear on printouts of your Oyster travel this will constitute the receipt you need to submit with your claim).

Examples of claims

The examples that follow demonstrate how you compute a claim. Although the focus is on tube and car journeys, claims for other forms of transport are based on the same principles.

The examples show that there are different ways of computing the “out of pocket” test, and it should be noted that different comparisons come up with different results for the out of pocket test.  This might seem a little confusing, but usually it reflects the different pricing systems for travel cards and pay-as-you-go tickets.

Trainees are expected to make use of tickets that result in the lowest price for journeys, so will need to justify claims based on using of tickets which result in more expense than an obvious alternative.

Home Tufnell Park, placement Edgware Community Hospital Oyster pay as you go

    usual
method of
travel 		Oyster pay
as you go
return fares
(peak time) 		out of pocket
test 		Claim per
day
Home –
Base 		Tufnell Park –
Goodge St 		tube £4.60
    
Home –
Placement
 Tufnell Park –
Edgware Community
Hospital 		tube £4.40 travel to
placement is 20
pence cheaper
per day
 No claim

Home Tufnell Park, placement Edgware Community Hospital comparing costs of tube to cost of car journey

    usual
method of
travel 		Oyster pay
as you go
return fares
(peak time) 		out of pocket
test 		Claim per
day
Home –
Base 		Tufnell Park –
Goodge St 		Tube Zone
2- Zone 1 		 £4.60    
Home –
Placement 		Tufnell Park –
Edgware Community
Hospital 		driving (8.5
miles each
way = 17
miles @
0.24 per
mile ) =
£4.08 		 £4.08 travel to
placement is 52
pence cheaper
per day 		No claim

Home Oval, placement Northwick Park comparing Oyster pay as you go

    usual
method of
travel 		Oyster pay
as you go
return fares
(peak time) 		out of pocket
test 		Claim per
day
Home –
Base 		Oval – Goodge St Zone 2-
Zone 1 		£4.60    
Home –
Placement 		Oval – Northwick
Park 		Zone 2 to
Zone 4 (via
Zone 1) 		£6.20 travel to
placement is
£1.60 more per
day 		£1.60

Home Oval, placement Northwick Park comparing costs of tube to cost of car journey

    usual
method of
travel 		Oyster pay
as you go
return fares
(peak time) 		out of pocket
test 		Claim per
day
Home –
Base 		Oval – Goodge St Zone 2-
Zone 1 		£4.60    
Home –
Placement 		Oval – Northwick
Park 		driving
(14.5 miles
each way =
29 miles
@ 0.24
per mile ) =
£6.96 		£6.96 travel to
placement is
£2.36 pence
more per day 		£2.36


Making claims

Blank claim forms are downloadable from the course website.

Each claimant needs to submit two forms:

a) An “out-of-pocket’ calculation (so that it is clear how this has been computed): This form is self-explanatory. The space for notes allows explanation of any non-standard aspects of the journey.

b) A claim form: The example shows where the various costing are entered. The term ‘excess’ refers to the out-of pocket’ calculation.

If a trainee is claiming mileage rather than a fare the same principle applies – they should enter the actual mileage and the “excess” cost. Once details of a regular journey have been entered time can be save by referring to this as ‘journey 1’ or ‘journey 2’ (as has been done in the example).

Two completed examples of both forms follow. The second of these shows how to put in a claim form for a car. Becaue the out-of-pocket test in this example is not computed using ‘like-for-like’ modes of travel it is tricky to register the basis for the claim on the form – for that reason (as in the example) a note should be written referring to the out of pocket test form.

Frequency of submissions

Travel claims should be submitted to the office monthly.

Late claims: Trainees are expecetd to submit forms monthly. If a claim is submitted  which covers a period longer than one month it will need to be explained in writing why the claim has been delayed. Claims backdated for longer than 3 months will not usually be passed to Camden and Islington unless there is a compelling reason for the delay.

Countersigning of travel forms

Trainee's supervisors must countersign the travel form before it is handed in to college. When they do this they are officially confirming that the trainee has undertaken the journeys for which they are making a claim (there is a space for this at the bottom of the form).

Entering all the required fields

Trainees must enter all the relevant fields, including the totals (otherwise the form will be returned).

Receipts

Trainees need to include receipts for all journeys made by public transport. These receipts should match the actual journeys they have undertaken (and hence there needs to be a match between the out of pocket test and receipts).

A printout of the history of purchase/travel using an Oyster Card can be obtained from any Underground ticket office.

Evidence of travel for at least a proportion of journeys is expected, and forms claiming for multiple public transport journeys but with no accompanying receipts may not be accepted. 

Where relevant you will need to keep receipts for parking.

Fraudulent claims

Submission of a fraudulent claim is a serious matter, and under some circumstances can lead to dismissal and potentially prosecution.

All claims are checked carefully, and they are additionally audited by Camden and Islington. Although it might be tempting to embellish claims, you should be aware that the potential consequences far outweigh any possible financial gain.