Over your illustrious career as a medical student, there’s inevitably going to be lots and lots of travelling involved. Sometimes the travel is easy and paid for, other times the travel is complicated and expensive. To help guide you through the years of transport costs this page describes the transport options to different hospitals, as well as how the costs can be reimbursed! Unfortunately different sites have different policies, so please read carefully for each specific trust. QMC/City Hospital – Nottingham Pre Clinical years (Years 1 – 2) – The transport costs involved in these years will mostly be to your GP clinics. You should be informed when given your GP placement, whether your placement is at a sufficient distance for the university to organise free taxi journeys. All other placements will require bus costs/petrol costs out of your own pocket. Reimbursement is not possible for these placements. CP1 and CP2 – No reimbursement options exist for Nottingham based students in clinical years. Travel to city hospital is possible via a free Medilink hopper bus whose timetable can be found here: http://www.nuh.nhs.uk/media/1760362/medilink_timetable_dec_2014.pdf For specific CP2 placements, again any transport costs are expected for the medical student to pay without reimbursement. For Psych where much of the placement is at Highbury, we recommend car sharing as the cheapest method. Bus fares and petrol costs cannot be reimbursed though reimbursement options for Highbury will be considered soon. CP3 – See Fifth year section below Royal Derby Hospital/LCRH/Kingsway Hospital – Derby Pre-Clinical years – Transport to hospital placement days are provided by the university for all students. CP1 and CP2 – A free Derby Hospital Hopper bus (904) is provided, leaving campus at East Drive and arriving at RDH, timetable can be found here: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/about/documents/904times.pdf. Due to it being free, any petrol costs or non-hopper bus journeys at times when the hopper bus is a possibility cannot be reimbursed. Free parking is available at all Derby hospital sites, a parking permit requires a cheque of £25.00 which is refunded when the permit is returned at the end of your placement. Outside of the hopper bus timetable, the Red arrow bus can be caught from Derby Bus station (timetable here: https://www.trentbarton.co.uk/services/redarrow ). Different CP2 placements will have different policies on if these outside-hopper-bus-timetable journeys can be reimbursed, so ask your education lead. For all other transport costs, the possibility of reimbursement is assessed by the education office case by case. A reimbursement form must be filled in and a receipt of the cost of the journey is required so KEEP THE RECIEPTS!! The form can be found outside the course office in the education centre, we recommend putting any travel cost you are unsure about in the form and the education office will remove any trips that do not fit their reimbursement policies. For Obstetrics and Gynaecology, during labour week, travel to or from RDH may be required outside of even the Red arrow bus times. In these cases where your placement begins before 7am or finishes after 10pm you can have a paid Taxi arranged. (Note – taxi is only an option to those who do not have a parking permit)
Travel to Kingsway hospital – Best option is to Hopper bus it to RDH and walk to Kingsway; if the path through the parking lot is open it is a 5 minute walk, if not you will have to walk around which is a 15-20 min walk. Travel to LRCH – A hopper bus exists between RDH and LRCH. https://www.trentbarton.co.uk/services/royalderby. Free bus passes can be gained from the course office in RDH so make sure you pick some up as otherwise the trip will cost you! CP3 – See Fifth year section below King’s Mill Hospital- Mansfield Pre-Clinical years – Transport to hospital placement days are provided by the university for all students. CP1 & CP2 – No hopper bus exists between King’s Mill and Nottingham. Bus services to Mansfield are caught from Victoria Bus station in the city centre which takes you directly to the hospital. Alternatively, trains run regularly to Mansfield from Nottingham train station, although an additional bus is required from Mansfield train station to the hospital. All CP1 and CP2 students placed in King’s Mill are provided free accommodation adjacent to the hospital with free parking available. Because of this no travel costs associated with being placed in Mansfield is reimbursed, this is true regardless of whether you have mandatory central teaching every week back in Nottingham. An exception to this is students based in Mansfield for Health Care of the Elderly, which may require travel to Kirkby and Newark. For these placements the travel can be reimbursed, by contacting the medical lead for the placement. 5th Year MAST students – Mast students are not provided accommodation at King’s Mill due to a lack of space, and therefore are given set amounts towards travel expenses at the end of the attachment, the information for which should be given at the start of the attachment (see also below for 5th year reimbursement options) Boston (Pilgrim Hospital) & Lincoln Hospital – United Lincolnshire Hospital Trust All placements in ULHT hospitals are given free accommodation along with reimbursement of travel expenses for course related travel that is necessary. • For Cars, mileage is paid for the INITIAL journey from the medical school to placement, and the return journey home. • Mandatory teaching or course related activity such as exams/SJT will also be reimbursed. Non mandatory teaching cannot be reimbursed. • Mileage for the journeys are standardised fairly and can only be claimed from the Medical School to the Placement site and NOT from the student’s home address. NOTE – this means any student whose home is not Nottingham based e.g. Derby can only claim journeys from placement to the medical school, any journeys from placement to their home is not valid to be reimbursed. Additionally any journey cost involved in travelling home from the medical school cannot be claimed. • All mileage claims will be paid using the following recommended mileage unless there is a very valid and evidenced reason for varying this (ie road closure). From
To
Mileage
Approx Time
Medical School
Lincoln County Hospital
40.2
1 hour 4 mins
Medical School
Grantham and District Hospital
26.2
44 mins
Medical School
Pilgrim Hospital Boston
60.8
1 hour 28 mins
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Current Mileage is paid at a rate of 28p per mile plus 5p per mile for any passengers carried (other than the driver) – passengers must be named. Mileage rates are paid at the base rate under NHS Agenda for Change and are subject to any national changes.
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Local or course related mileage will be paid according to actual miles travelled.
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For public transport tickets will be required as proof of travel for reimbursement so don’t bin them! Train is the best and cheapest alternative to cars for both Boston and Lincoln. Only use taxis if prior agreement had been made with education office, and only allowed in exceptional circumstances.
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Reimbursement forms need to be completed and returned within 3 months of the journey for claims to be accepted.
NHS travel Bursaries – FOR GEM STUDENTS FROM CP1 ONWARDS/OR CP3 STUDENTS ONLY The course office accepts travel claims from students who have PPE (Practical Placement Expenses) forms, which are part of the NHS Bursary scheme. • The travel bursary is means tested but generally if NHS criteria are met, GEM students in CP1, CP2 and CP3, and Undergraduate CP3 students can claim travel cost back via PPE. [As an aside: The means testing can result in some cases in something called a ‘travel disregard’ this means the regulations show they are eligible to claim some travel costs after a certain amount of money. In these cases, students send in their claim forms, and NHS bursaries record their journeys and start to pay them the costs back after a certain figure. E.g. somebody may be told they have a £100 travel disregard and over the course of the year submit claims totalling £600; NHS bursaries would pay them £500. ] • What is reimbursed? – This bit gets rather complicated so please read carefully! • So – Under the old rules ‘Course started Before Sept 2012 (i.e. current CP3 students of 2014-2015 –If I am a CP3 student and my home base is Nottingham, and I have a placement in Kings Mill that takes me 40 miles and I would usually drive to Nottingham 10 miles, I would be allowed to reclaim all 40 miles for my Mansfield placement. • But – under the new rules for ‘after 1 Sept 2012 course starters) (I.e. current CP2 of 2014-2015 and all following year groups) The NHS will pay the difference between your usual travel and the placement you are claiming for. For example, if I am currently in CP2 and usually I drive to Nottingham 10 miles anyway, and then I go to Kings Mill for Child Health which is 40 miles, I need to work out how many days of placement I have done, and deduct accordingly so that NHS reimburse me for 30 miles of each journey. BUT- if I am a CP2 student who usually would walk to Uni or ride a bike, I would be allowed to claim all 40 miles as bikes/ walking doesn’t cost me anything.
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There are some detailed documents that explain this here: http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/Documents/Students/Guidance_Notes_for_Practice_Placement _Expenses_%28Travel_and_Accommodation%29_%28V6%29_01.2014.pdf
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The most updated (Nov 2014) form indicates mileage is paid at .33p per mile (a rise from . 23p in previous policies. Any attachment after 1 Sept 2014 can be claimed at the higher rate http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/Students/Documents/Students/PPE_Guide_A_universitys_guide _to_Practice_Placement_Expenses_%28V3%29_11.2014.pdf
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How to Claim? • This is the form for PPE reimbursement claims for 2014/2015 http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/Documents/Students/Practice_Placement_Expenses_(travel_ and_accommodation)_claim_form_2014.15_(V1)_11.2014.pdf • When a claim form is handed into the office the student will need 1) a separate travel from for each attachment. 2) Include a BOSS cover sheet [BOSS= Bursary Online Support System] which has a barcode- without this, NHS cannot process the claim. 3) include any tickets e.g. parking permits, train tickets, bus tickets, mango card print out (but not petrol receipts as the petrol costs are worked out on a mileage formula). Taxis are allowed but only for exceptional circumstances, so I would advise students using a taxi to supply a covering letter explaining the genuine necessity of a taxi.
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The form takes 4-6 weeks to process
As you can see the process of reimbursement is complicated and full of words. Please read each section relevant to you carefully! If you have any questions useful contacts are: •
Julie Evans Julie.evans3@ulh.nhs.uk for Lincolnshire Trust
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Valerie McCabe Valerie.mccabe@sfh-tr.nhs.uk for King’s Mill (specifically MAST when accommodation is not provided)
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Charlene Cross medicine-ug-coordinator@nottingham.ac.uk deals with processing NHS travel bursaries
We Hope this has been useful to you, if you have any questions not covered here feel free to contact Student Voice, and we will try and hunt down the answers to your queries as best we can!