Letters required from your employers for ILR

We need to provide letters of employment for our ILR - which specifically mention if we took any unauthorized or unpaid leaves.

My situation:
Non trainee from January 2016 to August 2017
Core medical trainee ( employed by HEE) from August 2017 to August 2019
Specialty trainee ( employed by HEE) from August 2019 to date

My leaves ( apart from annual and study leave) 
CMT 1 - Paternity leave 
ST3 - Took annual leave to visit my home country 

ST4 - Sick leaves due to COVID-19 

I contacted all my trusts in December, 2019 to send a letter to me mentioning:
Annual Leave (including time outside of the UK)
Unpaid Leave
Study Leave (outside of the UK)
Any maternity, paternity or parental leave
Any unauthorized absence


I then contacted tier2@hee.nhs.uk ( Please not that this email address may be different in other deaneries. I contacted them here as they communicated with me earlier throughout my training regarding my TIER 2 work visa) to send me a letter. 

I am attaching a screenshot of the letters below ( I have hidden the personal details):

1. This was my letter of employment from my trust where I did a  non training post as a SHO from January, 2016 to August 2017. I did not go abroad or take any leave apart from study leave and annual leaves. 

2. This was my letter of employment from my trust where I did my core medical training post year 1 from August 2017 to August 2018 . I did not go abroad but I took paternity leave for the birth of my daughter. I did not take any sick leave. 

2. This was my letter of employment from my trust where I did my core medical training year 2 post from August 2018 to August 2019 and subsequently my ST3 training post from August 2019 to August 2020 . I went abroad in my ST3 post and the dates are mentioned in this letter. I did not take any sick leave. 

3. This is my letter from my current where I am working as a ST4 trainee. The HEE requested me to provide details of all leaves including annual leaves and sick leaves. I had taken sick leave due to COVID-19 ( once for the actual infection and again for when I was unwell but my COVID swab was negative) 

 

4. This is a letter from my previous trust where I have been locum shifts on a regular basis. I wanted to provide this to explain the extra pay I was getting in my bank account in case the UKVI wanted to check. This provided proof of that. 

5. This is the letter I received from HEE. They asked me to email all the letters I had received from the trusts I had did my core and specialty training at.   

My timeline:
1. I emailed the HEE TIER 2 team in Mid December and they sent me a very useful guidance booklet, template to send to my other trusts. 

2. I started emailing all my trusts on the 15th of December 

3. I received all my letters my mid January.  

4. I submitted my online application on the 5th of January 
5. I attended my biometrics appointment on the 5th of March 
6. I received an email that my ILR application was successful on the 17th of March. 

Some tips:
1. It is useful to get such a letter as soon as you leave your trust. They will have your details on their system and hence they can easily issue a letter. You can chase it up by going to their office and as they know you well, they will not have any issues. 

2. Do get a recent dated letter from all your employers before your ILR though. I am not sure about the implication of providing letters from upto 4 years ago. 

You can email the trusts a few weeks prior to applying for your ILR requesting them to issue a letter dated from that day. Attach the letter you received from them upon leaving the trust and they should be able to copy-paste it onto a new template with the current date. 

3. Start getting letters at least 6 weeks prior to applying. As you can see, despite my best efforts, it took me a month to get all the letters. 

4. Leave the trusts on good terms - you never know when you might need them. In my case, The HR team of my first trust where I did my non training job at was completely new. So they emailed my supervisor and as she knew me well, she requested them to issue a letter immediately. 

I personally felt that all trusts know the ILR process well and understand that we need
proof of employment mentioning the relevant information.
I found the TIER 2 HEE team incredibly helpful as they provided excellent guidance on
the process.