NHS shared parental leave pay

[Becsim]

Does anyone have any experience of NHS shared parental leave?
I have read the guidance and I’m worried i’m too optimistic with my understanding of it.

For context, I am a teacher so get reasonable pay for 18 weeks then the remaining 21 weeks just smp. My husband works for the NHS.

From my understanding, he could take some time off using shared parental leave and he’d be eligible for some element of OMP. (If he took it when I’d technically ended my mat leave.) Something like half pay+SMP as long as I haven’t used up all of our statutory allowance.

This seems too good to be true. Does anyone have any experience? Thank you!

My understanding is that he won't be entitled to any OMP, only 2 weeks paternity. He should get any SMP you haven't used...

But if we do shared parental leave, he can have more than two weeks.

Based on this he’s get 6 weeks full 18 weeks half which is about the aame
as teaching
https://www.dbth.nhs.uk/document/corpemp15-pay-scenarios/

you know you can ‘return’ over holidays to get full pay for those weeks?

I have recently been looking into this and found it quite difficult to navigate to begin with. However my understanding is you can in fact be off together with baby - it is just the financial side of things that will be affected.

SMP is paid for up to 39 weeks, regardless of how u split maternity with your husband - any pay won't exceed 39 weeks. You would need to decide what weeks your husband is taking off and in those weeks you wouldn't get paid however he would. I hope I've explained this well 😅

Thank you.

That’s what I was thinking. Teaching is only 4 weeks full, 2 weeks 90% and then 12 weeks half pay + SMP so I was hoping when this ends (18 weeks) he could take a few weeks half pay +smp. As he would be elligle for a few more weeks of ok pay.
If he’s only eligible for SMP it’s not worth us doing it.

We have a similar situation here. It was described as having a ‘pool’ of time off, 2 weeks of which has to be taken off by the mother just after giving birth. So 50 weeks that can be shared, either at the same time or separately (eg 25 weeks for both parents, at the same time or alternating).

The problem we have had is working out the pay - we are told different things by different companies (I am working for a school who have told me that the enhanced pay aspect offered by my job would disappear if we stay off at the same time, leaving us with just SMP). My partner’s job says the pay would be unaffected by being off at the same time, but this has been questioned as the booklet we were given by his work says conflicting advice. We are just worried that we would end up with both of us on SMP (£75’ish a week) if we are both off, so we can’t afford this.

We are super confused ourselves. So, this has put us off completely, as no one can give us a straight answer.

From my understanding (that might be wrong) as long as we’re both within the 39 weeks, we’d both get paid. I thought (hopefully) I’d be paid SMP and he could get some OMP for the few weeks.

honestly though, I have no idea! 😅

My partner (who has been banging his head over this for a month or so), also says it depends on the company policy as they decide on how much enhanced maternity pay is available and how this changes with parental leave.

My husband works for a big university and he got full pay, then half pay + SMP so it is possible. Maybe depends on your trust?

Why is it so confusing to navigate! Hopefully someone else can share some insight as I though I had it sussed 🤦‍♀️

Your explanation definitely makes sense, it is so stressful trying to navigate and understand it 😅 isn't it? X

I have asked him to find out so hopefully he’ll remember to ask this week 😅

This sounds amazing!
I hope he can find out.

@Becsim my advice is to fill out the form showing what you would like to do week by week then your DH takes it to his HR who will check it. Do it as a draft and ask them to check it’s right.

https://www.acas.org.uk/shared-parental-leave-form-templates

OMP in the NHS is for the parent giving birth. He is entitled to 2 weeks paternity leave on full pay.
If he wants to take any more time off he can apply for shared parental leave, but this would be using an element of your OMP, hence shared.
Ask him to get his Parental Leave policy from his work, might be called something different....

I'm also so confused about this! I get 6 month full pay, 3 months smp and 3 months no pay. My partner gets a similar package. He said a colleague is taking 2 month full pay after his partner's paid maternity leave finishes as part of their shared parental leave package. Surely that's too good to be true or we'd all be doing that??
Why is it so confusing?! Do the HR teams in the different companies have to talk to each other to make it work?

I get the same as @Happyharper , we wanted my husband to take 5 weeks shared parental leave (SMP) while I'm on full pay, but were told if we did that I'd lose 5 weeks of full pay, so he'll take 3 weeks after I've gone onto SMP, and we'll both be on SMP for that period.

Always start with statutory entitlement to leave and work out how you plan to take it. For example the mum must have at least two weeks SML after the baby is born. You add these two weeks to the SML taken before the birth to get the minimum period of SML. The Dad/spouse/civil partner etc. is entitled to two weeks paternity leave. This is frequently taken as the two weeks after the birth and must be taken within 56 days.

Statutory Shared Parental Leave (SShPL) is 52 weeks but you always deduct at least two weeks SML but is usually slightly more. What ever is left e.g. 48 weeks, can be split into SML or SShPL for the Mum and SShPL for the Dad/spouse etc.

Note: The mum has to voluntarily give up some of their SML for the Dad/ spouse etc. to get SShPL.

Then you allocate the 39 weeks SMP/SShPP to the leave.

Occupational Maternity/ Shared Parental Leave
Note: If you are not eligible for SMP/SShPP you may not get OMP/OShPP because these are frequently paid as a top up to Statutory entitlements.

Two key questions are do you work for the same employer e.g. the Civil Service? As far as I am aware (I am slightly out of date) if both parents work for the Civil Service they have one joint entitlement of 26 weeks of OMP/OShPP, which can be shared between parents. If you work for two totally different employers you may get two entitlements.

The second is what is your employers policy?

HTHs

Thanks. You seem very knowledgeable.

DH works for the NHS and I’m a teacher.

@Becsim HR background so have quite a lot of experience but a bit out of date.

Just had a Quick Look at the NHS Staff Handbook https://www.nhsemployers.org/publications/tchandbook and it says this “15.62 An NHS employer (as defined at Annex 1) will not pay more than 26 weeks,8 weeks’ full pay (including the two weeks’ compulsory leave) and 18 weeks’ half pay, to employees accessing occupational maternity or adoption or shared parental pay in aggregate to an eligible couple. This is irrespective of whether one or both parents are NHS employees as shared parental leave and pay is a joint entitlement.”

There are also these examples https://www.nhsemployers.org/system/files/2023-12/Shared-parental-leave-guidance.pdf

HTH

This is inaccurate. OMP is occupational maternity pay and is entirely decided by the company. Statutory maternity pay (smp) is government funded, and assuming the mother takes her full entitlement of pay herself she gets the full 39 weeks pay at statutory. The company will top up to its occupational level depending on its own policies

any smp not taken by mum can be swapped to dad, with a total of 39 weeks between them. Companies can also decide that dads are eligible for occupational shared parental pay.
however as many don’t even top up to full pay for the two weeks paternity this seems unlikely.

depending how willing you are to fright your corner (for others too!) you could point out that allowing mums occupational pay and not dads could be considered gender discrimination, outside the legal 1st two weeks, and they should be paying ‘parental leave’ at the same rate for all their employees.

Not all companies have updated their shared leave policies in this way though. If a woman ends her mat leave and goes onto shared she would often forfeit any occupational entitlement she has so shouldn’t do it until that runs out.

sadly less than 5% of couples are doing SPL at the moment in part because of lack of awareness, lack of equitable finances and a social belief that women should by default take the first year solo. Sounds like your husbands company is a good one to work for

In scenario 3 of this link it discusses nhs and non nhs employees’ occupational pay. Occupational is paid by the company not the gov so it’s entirely up to company (although yes nhs is gov funded this isn’t the statutory funding of leave bit) what they pay.
the couple share the statutory pay but not the occupational

@Mary7241 Im not NHS and I suspect the scenarios may be older than the policy. It’s why I was clear you need to do a draft proposal and check with HR to make sure of the current rules.

We did shared parental leave and are both NHS so the pay was the same for each of us and we just divided it up between us. You have to think of it as a total pot of time and money. It was complicated tho and yes the HR depts did have to talk to each other (different trusts).

Sorry to hijack but does anyone knowledgeable know if GP practices would be included in the pay being paid in aggregate to a couple or are they excluded from all this guidance given they're not technically NHS employers at all?