NHS Maternity leave, annual leave and sickness. SPD

[charli07985]

I am after some advice. I am currently 23 weeks pregnant. I have been told this week i have SPD. Work have been fantastic and made many changes to help with this so i can stay at work as long as possible (which i what i want to try and do).
My mat leave officially starts on my due date, i am taking the majority of my annual leave prior to my due date, which will mean me finishing work 2 days before i am 35 weeks pregnant.
Like i said i am wanting to stay at work as long as possible but understand this may become more of a challenge now that i have SPD.
My question is if i do go off sick, say at 30 weeks with this SPD and i am signed off by my GP up until when my annual leave starts, will this effect my annual leave and the ability for me to still take my annual leave prior to my mat leave?
I am concerned that they will make me take my annual leave as sick and then begin my mat leave at 36 weeks, so potentially meaning i will lose out on my annual leave????
Obviously this isnt something i am planning or wanting to happen, but what i am concerned about is that if i am at risk of losing my annual leave it will prevent me going off sick, if i really need to.
Any help or guidance would be much appreciated.

@villamariavintrapp do you have access to the policy? I'm gg&c and ours are all public. My friends are all Lothian and they used there's at the end too.
Is it managers discretion?

I don't have the policy, they said 28 days was the maximum, apparently this is what they allow if you are on long term sick leave or absent for any other reason, and so also mat leave. But to be honest it took months of arguing to get to that point, previously they had said a week.

All policies should be accessible, you should be able to access them yourself to check.

This is the one from the annual leave and sick leave that would answer the OPs question but may just be specific to my trust.

39. Any employee who is not able to use up their leave entitlement in a given year because of sick leave will be entitled to the difference between any annual leave and/or public holidays taken before sick leave began and the statutory entitlement. From 1st April 2009 the Working Time Directive statutory entitlement to annual leave is 5.6 weeks (28 days). This should be carried over and added to the entitlement in the new leave year or, where an employee terminates and does not return to work, should be paid at full pay rates in lieu of leave.

I'm NHS too (in Scotland- Fife) & we must take all our annual leave for the financial year before finishing up for maternity leave. Not allowed to carry over leave between financial years.

Worked fine for me as my DD was due in May & I took a year off from end of March.

However was a PITA for my colleague who was due in July & had to finish in April.

Must just be different for every trust then. I go off in April and didnt think I'd be able to take too much as wouldn't have accrued any.
My colleague came back with full years entitlement and the next years so I knew we could carry over.

What happens to everything you accrue during your leave? Or are they just talking about holiday accrued before mat leave starts?