Maternity pay NHS

[L00byL0u]

Hi any NHS band 5 (£24214) staff able to advise me an average of mat pay over 12 months?
I know what I'm entitled to but trying to work out a monthly average and wondering if any one can advise what they got when on Mat leave. I'm not doing nights but do some weekends.

I'm band 6 and get £1200 ish a month so far (I'm on month 4). I asked to have mine spread out equally but they can't spread out your smp so the pay does vary quite a bit (I'm not sure if you knew this or not, I didn't and it was a bit of a shock 😂).

Not sure what stage of pregnancy you're at but if you email payroll the month you go on mat leave they send you a breakdown which helps plan a little 😊 it doesn't include money deducted for tax etc though

@nappyheadnappyhair no I didn't know that. Makes it hard to budget. Thanks for telling me.

Yeah it was a bit of a 😱 for me too!

Basically they are allowed to average out your nhs pay but not your smp so the first month of maternity you have no smp so first wage is crap! I got round it by doing 2 weeks annual leave 2 weeks maternity so that I had a decent ish wage that first month :-)

Hope you get sorted, it's really hard to plan ahead isn't it! Feels like no one can give you a straight answer on how much you'll get!

@nappyheadnappyhair I know, I don't start it until 30th Dec have two weeks annual leave then officially start Mat leave 13th jan.
I'm just trying to work out if I can get a car on a salary sacrifice scheme or some other way. It's not looking likely though.

I was tempted to do similar but decided to wait until I'd started maternity and I am so glad I did! I know nhs maternity pay is really good in comparison to some but still I'm here counting the pennies 😂

@L00byL0u I have a car on salary deduction it's slightly more per month than salary sacrifice however it doesn't effect your maternity pay where as the salary sacrifice effects your maternity pay massively! I've had my car with them for nearly 3 years (current car 3 months)
Do you work on the community or based at hospital? As this also would effect payments x

@dollytutu I work in hospital, I wouldn't dont it until I've gone passed the weeks the calculate the mat pay but I can't really budget for it which makes it hard to know what to do. I'm currently 20 weeks.

I've just returned to work after 12 months maternity leave. I was around band 5 pt 2/3 on salary scale when I went off. I asked for my payments to be made equally over the 12 months and received just short of £900 most months however on the months where there are 5 Saturdays I received around £1100. Not sure of the logic behind this or how it works but hope that helps!

@L00byL0u when you hand in your matb1 form HR send you out a break down of pay so tht should help, I handed mine in last week (24wek) and got it literally a few days later , not sure if it still is affected after qualifying weeks, I've always had it on deductions due to also working in hospital , however while ow as undertaking some training I travelled which I got miles pod for which made the monthly payments cheaper, however my ward manager did tell me tht on sacrifice you end up lying more of take mat leave I believe it's something to do with tax reasons ? However I know deductions don't effect payments at all as this comes out after tax.
Going back to mat pay you can get a from from your midwife any time now as you are pat 20 weeks, so if you send that on with the form printed off the intranet you should get your breakdown of pay pretty quickly x

@hm1610 thanks for that. I don't know if it's better than I expected or not but it's not going to be easy that's for sure.

@dollytutu my midwife said I have to wait for my 20 week scan which is Monday then she will do my matb1 form. Plus I think HR will take ages to sort it all.

Hi all, can I just ask where you send your mat b1 form? Is it to payroll or HR? Neither my line manager or the operations manager in my department have a clue how I request my mat leave despite definitely not being the first person pregnant in my department! I found a form on the intranet that I have filled in but it just says send in your mat b1 form and I'm not 100% sure where to.. thanks in advance!

@LAH74 I took mine to HR department and the lady was lovely said she would give it to the lady who dealt with it x