NHS Maternity pay help.

[EmmaC9590]

Morning,
I am an NHS band 5 nurse at midpoint, my annual salary is just over 29K but with enhancements its probably around 33K (ish). I work full time and have been with my employer for over 3 years and qualify for OMP and SMP. I am due in November and I am taking the full 52 weeks. I am also wanting my pay to be spread over 12 months, when I go on maternity leave I will be pausing my pension for 12 months.

I am just looking for other NHS employers who are on leave with a similar salary to highlight what they get each month, I have tried endlessly with the calculators online but I cannot get it to spread payments over 12 months. Thank you in advance :) x

Hi @EmmaC9590 I'm also pregnant and work for the NHS, so I am keen to know as well. I was just wondering, what is the benefit of pausing your pension during maternity?

I dont work for the NHS, but i was advised not to spread the payments as you actually lose out on some enhancements in the lower paid months.

Just budget the pay yourself in your account. So if you are getting 6 months full pay for example, move half of your pay each month in to a savings account, that you can then move back in to your current account for the months the pay drops.

Hope that makes sense.

Speak to your payroll department. They will give you the figures for 9 months or spreading over the year.

I spread mine out over 10 months and it worked well, didn’t lose out. The first 2 months are tricky because you can’t spread out SMP and SMP doesn’t start until month 3 so you aren’t paid as much for first 2 months
obviously SMP also stops after month 9 so you will see a drop then too
i emailed payroll and asked for a maternity pay forecast for 9 10 and 11 months to see what would work best for me before deciding. They were helpful and sent me a full breakdown of what each scenario looked like