Maternity leave nhs

[Bethpaigeox]

Hey, could anyone help me, I'm only 6 weeks but I'm trying to calculate maternity leave as I've spoke to HR and they can't really calculate it for me, I'm looking at taking 9 months off, I know 8 weeks is full pay, and so on but if anyone could roughly work it out for me I'd be grateful, I'm entitled to smp and occupational thats one thing HR have said due to my amount of service with the nhs.

As a basic I get about £1300 per month after reductions, I'm 37.5 hours and a band 2, which equates to a wage of £19918 per year (before reductions)

Any help would be appreciated as im looking at how much extra I will need to top it back up to my full month, so then I can do more extra shifts.

Call payroll they will be able to calculate

You'd have to check when your qualifying period is (my trust is the 2 pay periods before 24 weeks). The qualifying period is when you'd need to hammer the overtime to boost your maternity pay. Until you know what you will earn in the qualifying period you can't estimate your mat pay with any sort of accuracy.

You also have options on how you take your pay- you can have it spread out over your mat leave or you can take it as it is paid to you (i.e. 8 weeks full etc). One thing to note is that you don't get the full 39 weeks of SMP- you only get 31 weeks as the full pay entitlement wipes out the SMP for those weeks. In my trust that means you don't get SMP for the first 8 weeks of may leave regardless of how you split your pay.

Hey there also an NHS worker and as a band 5 they calculate mat pay based on your earnings from weeks 17-25 of pregnancy. So if you did more hours as overtime during that period it will increase it and also doing nights/weekends during that period will also increase mat pay as you get your incentives. So unfortunately until you have worked that period they won’t be able to give you an exact breakdown month by month.

I believe it’s the same for all bands but I could be wrong.

hope that helps somewhat, all the best xx

I'm band 2 like OP, and that's exactly how it works.

I can't help with the calculations but I know we're all meant to be getting our April payrise this month and my trust have said we'll get the 6 months back pay at the same time. Were also due the agenda for change consolidated leave money back pay soon too. It might be worth stashing it away for a rainy day if you can xxx

Thank you all! Weve been lucky to fall so quickly after a miscarriage last year but our wedding is upon us in November and now I'm stressing about mat pay as we can't afford for mine to drop to £600 so was hoping if I could get the extras in it wouldn't go that low

Also, when they work out how much you get as based on your extra shifts during that 8 week period will they give it to you in writing as im wary they may say a certain amount and I may get less and be worse off than planned

Do they count bank shifts for maternity pay? I thought it was just regular shifts?

@EL8888 yeah they count the extras you do between a certain 8 weeks x

@Bethpaigeox how do you claim that money? Inform the bank office of the date you’re going on maternity leave? My trust are lame so l can’t rely on them to do anything. Today’s row is about why they have only paid me 25% of the back pay, they owe me since April

@EL8888 no I spoke to HR, and I think if you do loads of bank between week 17 and week 25 they automatically sort it out when they work out how much your maternity pay will be it gets based off the bank and substantive shifts you do during that time

Bank shifts depend on your trust so double check with the policy.
In my trust bank shifts worked through agency and nhsp don't count towards maternity pay, you have to do overtime booked directly with the ward manager instead.

There is a calculator for NHS maternity pay.
maternity.money/nhs-maternity-pay-calculator

Do you know if it goes off the shifts you work during that period or the pay days in that period? As our wages/unsocial hours are a month behind if that makes sense!

It will only count to your maternity wage if you do overtime at your regular place of work rather than actual bank shifts. As bank shifts would technically be pay from a second job although it is still within the NHS xx - ignore me I just noticed this thread is from 2022 and I cant work out how to delete this 😂