Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR)

You will need to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) with the United Kingdom Visas and Immigration (UKVI) if you wish to stay after your visa expires

You should start to think about your Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) application at the beginning of your sponsorship due to the absence information you will need to provide to the NHS England Overseas Sponsorship Team from each of your employers.

It will be useful for you to request this information throughout your training whilst rotating to all the different Trusts/employers as opposed to requesting 5 years (or more) of previous history.

Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) letter

You will require a letter from your Sponsor, which the NHS England Overseas Sponsorship Team can provide. Please complete our form to request the letter. 

However, you will need to be aware of the timescales of when you can make an application with the UKVI as the letter provided cannot be issued too early before your qualifying period.

To find out when you can apply for your ILR, please visit the UKVI website. 

Before the NHS England Overseas Sponsorship Team can produce an ILR letter all information will need to be submitted via our online form. To complete the form you will require:

• Your current or most recent NHS England e-visa share code (beginning with ‘W’). If you do not have a share code. Please generate a new right to work Share Code
• Current CoS Number
• Your General Medical Council (GMC) number
• A copy of your recent payslip emailed to us once form submitted

If you are on maternity, paternity, shared parental or adoption leave we will also need:

• The date this commenced
• Evidence of your salary (payslip) immediately before your leave started

Timelines

Once we have received all the correct information from you, we aim to email your letter to you within 7 working days. 

What you need to provide to UKVI:

You will need to provide confirmation from your employers (such as trusts) of all leave taken whilst sponsored by NHS England as this data is not held centrally. Types of leave include the following.

• Annual leave (including time outside of the UK)
• Unpaid leave
• Study leave (outside of the UK)
• Any maternity, paternity or parental leave
• Any unauthorised absence

You will need to provide this information as a letter from each of the employers/Trusts that you have worked for over during your sponsorship with NHS England.

NHS England Overseas Sponsorship Team can only issue ILR support letters to doctors/dentists currently being sponsored by NHS England. 

If you are previously sponsored by NHS England and currently have a different sponsor, you will only need your current sponsor to provide you the letter.

NHS England can only confirm periods in which you were sponsored by NHS England. If there is more than 4 weeks gap between 2 CoS issued by NHS England, we can only confirm the most recent sponsorship period under NHS England. 

Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) Granted

Once you have had your Indefinite Leave to Remain granted decision from the UKVI, you must inform the NHS England Overseas Sponsorship team by completing our form.

You must also inform your NHS England Local Team/Lead Employer and email a copy of your your current or most recent NHS England e-visa share code (beginning with ‘W’).

You can generate a new right to work Share Code if needed.

NHS England will update your records and cancel your Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) which was issued to you for your Tier 2/Skilled Worker visa (as per UKVI guidance). One of NHS England’s sponsor duties includes reporting specific information to the UKVI via SMS. One of these reasons or occasions that we have to report to the UKVI is when NHS England stop sponsoring a migrant due to ILR.

After this process has been done, we will archive your records. You will no longer need a sponsorship. Should you further apply for a naturalisation, you do not need to notify NHS England.

If you need a letter to confirm that you are in the training programme

If you need a letter to confirm that you are in the training programme, this is not the same as the IRL letter. The NHS England Overseas Sponsorship Team can provide a letter for you to confirm your sponsorship details. If you require a generic letter for other purposes than ILR to confirm that you are on a training programme (for example, for mortgage applications), you will need to contact your local programmes team.