Maternity pay In the NHS

It depends on how long you want to take off really. I didn’t spread my payments, but I only had 9 months off, with one month of SMP and then used holidays so was on pay

Basically you can chose to have your occupational maternity pay averaged over 26 weeks, or have full pay for 8 weeks then half pay for 18 weeks, statutory maternity pay cannot be averaged so you would get that for 13 weeks once your employer stops paying you x

I’ve gone with option 2. It means that while the first few weeks you’d normally get a higher pay will be lower, for the last 3 months of mat leave if you choose a year you will still get paid something when SMP finishes

That’s strange because I took my maternity leave in 2022 and chose 10 “equal” payments. Obviously there was a difference between 4 and 5 weeks months because maternity pay is paid in weeks instead of months but my SMP and occupational pay were all the average together. Maybe they’ve changed the rules? If you can split it into instalments I would recommend that. It avoided my wage dropping drastically and I was able to budget because I knew my pay would stay sort of similar each month, because regardless it’s going to be a drop. Even with the option I chose my pay dropped by around £1300 per month but at least I knew I was getting consistent amount over 10 months of that makes sense? X

Option 1 is maternity pay as most people know it with the pay decreasing and then just SMP for the remainder of mat leave. Option 2 allows you to spread the occupational pay. It can be really helpful depending on how long you take off. All of the pay from option 1 is spread across however long you take mat leave for. SMP is separate so that will be paid as normal across the qualifying weeks. With the Mat pay spread because of SMP it usually means your money will be lowest at the start and end of mat leave. Spreading my pay worked out I was only a few 100 short of my normal wage and made money worries over mat leave a lot less. The only thing with spreading the pay is if in the event you choose to end mat leave early then you wouldn’t get the remainder of the mat pay

I chose option one because I planned to take 9 months but I changed it to a year after my little boy was born it means I will have 3 months of no pay. Xx

I’m taking 9 months and opted for it to be split equally so I don’t fall short and have to go back early. My previous baby I opted for the first option and basically by month 6/7 the omp had ran out and I was just stuck with smp and I had to go back early

I’ve chosen option 2, meaning the first couple of payments will be less but I figure I’ll be at home with a newborn anyway so won’t have much going on 😂 after that, the payments shouldn’t be that much less than I get when I’m working (I’m a part time band 7) for the rest of my leave. I will be using annual leave to pad it out either side of mat leave so that’ll be fully paid.

@Anna how do they work yours out? I’m also B7 but when I took my leave I was on the bottom increment and my take home after tax and pension was around £2600 in 2022. My hours are 9-5 mon-Fri so I don’t get unsocial hours payments. I split mine into the instalments and was paid around £1300 per month (occasionally I got closer to £1600, I’m assuming this was the 5 week months). Did you work unsocial hours during your qualifying weeks so that your pay doesn’t drop too much? I want to have another baby in the next couple of years but quite worried now that the splitting into instalments won’t work the same as last time if SMP is not taken into it x

Thank you so so much for all of your responses, I appreciate it so much, you’ve helped me understand it a lot better xxx

@Chelsea sorry I was including SMP in my payments. SMP can’t be divided up as it’s not paid by your Trust. So the first couple of payments won’t be great as there’ll be no SMP but once SMP kicks in, the amounts won’t be too bad. But as I say, I’m part time (and also 9-5). I’ve asked payroll to provide me with a breakdown of what my payments will be as I only worked it out roughly myself.

I did option 2 having 12 months off means I stop getting paid mid October and no pay November then using holidays until mid January. I've been able to cover most my bills as not drastically lower even though evened out over the 9 months. I got a forecast from payroll but it didn't make sense to me I've just planned to save ready for November xx