NHS maternity pay - equal payments

[firsttimemum6]

Hi, I'm hoping someone can help. I'm a bit confused about the maternity leave payments. I work with the NHS and I have applied to have my payments spread over the 9 months. Upon reading a few forums online some people are saying that the first two months your receive less pay and then it goes up after this however I have contacted HR and they advised 'The first 6 weeks has to be paid at full pay and there after can be split into equal payments'. Therefore I would assume that I would get full pay for the first month and then it would go down a bit.

Can anyone help?

xx

For stat Maternity pay I know you get 90% of your pay for the first 6 weeks and then £140 per week thereafter. There is a great site for working it all out - www.gov.uk/maternity-paternity-calculator

I used it as if my employer would and it showed exactly how much I'd get each week.

I work in NHS and have had several maternity leaves! If you leave it the way they do it, you basically get more at the beginning and less at the end (I'm band 6 and get more than my usual monthly pay for the first couple of months and then just under full pay until 6 months and then stat for 3 months and then no pay). If you split over the 9 months, you get less than you would doing it the other way at the beginning and then more than you would towards the end. It seems swings and roundabouts to me!
I would speak to payroll and not HR as they calculate the wage and can help you work it all out.

Thanks :) I contacted payroll and they advised they wouldn't be able to provide me with a pay breakdown until I had started my maternity leave.

It's all so confusing haha xx

Your payroll obviously can't be arsed! Mine helped me work it all out to get a rough idea!

Firsttimemum6 I started my mat leave with the NHS recently and was given the same bullshit that I would be told how much I would receive once I had started my leave. I thought this was disgraceful, escalated it up with a lot of badgering and found out a month in advance.

It is not acceptable to find out that late, you need to be able to budget, and worse case scenario shorten your leave even in order to finance yourself. Don't let them get away with it they are just lazy fuckers!!

I am nhs and split my payments equally last time. I wouldn't do it again as it was confusing. They can give you an estimated breakdown but it will only be of your OMP not SMP which will be additional. SMP isn't paid to start with which is why I think it can be less to start with as it is all OMP but you choose to split it, if that makes sense.

This time I will not split it evenly as I feel I will know where I am with finances more, also I don't want to commit to a set maternity period until the baby is born.

You do get less at the start if you split it equally. So for 39 weeks you will get e.g.£200 per week OMP. from weeks 9-39 you will also get £140 SMP. You aren't eligible for the £140 for the first 8 weeks, hence your pay being lower. As PP have said though, swings and roundabouts

I'm band 6 NHS and I'm planning on splitting too. It's very confusing but your payroll department will be able to explain it to you.