Can I go on annual leave after sick leave?

[Rainbowgal]

I have annual leave booked at 35 weeks pregnant until my due date (so 5 weeks worth of annual leave)

I’m currently on sick leave at the moment. Just SMP. Can I stay on sick leave until the day my annual leave starts and then receive full pay again from employer?

Yes

How far along are you OP? General rules in employment are if you’re on sick leave at a certain point of pregnancy maternity leave automatically kicks in. If this is the case if your company then you will not be able to take any annual leave until your maternity leave ends.

Just checked, it’s 36 weeks so you will be fine with going at 35 weeks :)

Yes you can, because I did exactly that (was on bed rest due to baby trying to arrive far too early!!) I was on sick leave and then just transferred automatically to mat leave at 36 weeks.

as you are going at 35 weeks you’ll be fine.

although my first arrived at 34 weeks so I didn’t even get that far, and 2nd DD tried arriving from 26 weeks hence bed rest and sick leave.

the irony is that now neither of the little toe-rags are EVER early or on time for anything….

I was on sick leave from 28 weeks and I just stayed on sick leave (I was in hospital until birth) and HR allowed me to carry over the annual leave I had planned to take to the end of my maternity leave instead. However I get full pay for sick leave.

@Rainbowgal being a bit nosey, why are you taking annual leave rather than starting Maternity Leave and taking your annual leave after your Mat leave?

@Americansmoothy I was thinking of doing this mainly for money reasons. I was going to take Mat Leave at 35 weeks but then thought I’d use some annual leave before and a couple of weeks of annual leave after. Just so I get another month of full pay in before baby arrives

@Rainbowgal there are a couple of reasons for asking.

If you have occupational maternity pay and there is a minimum period you have to return to work after maternity leave e.g. NHS is 13 weeks, you can use annual leave for some of those weeks.

The other is about returning to work after Mat leave, you can use annual leave to give you longer at home but also you can use it to phase back into work.

If I assume you work 5 days full time and have 5 weeks annual leave accrued and you accrue another 4 weeks whilst on maternity leave you will have 45 days or 9 weeks leave leave to take. You could return to work 1 day a week and take 4 days leave for 4 weeks (16 days leave), then work 2 days and take 3 days leave for the next 4 weeks ( 12 days leave, 28 days total) then 3 days work 2 days leave for the next 4 weeks ( 8 days leave, 36 days total) etc.

If you are going part time you can stretch your leave even longer as it’s accrued on the basis of you being full time but taken as part time hours.

I do appreciate an extra months pay before you start mat leave is helpful but, as I have often said to women in your position, until you have your baby in your arms you don’t truly know how you will feel. Having the cushion of annual leave can give you more options when you are deciding on returning to work.

Obviously your employer needs to approve a phased return approach but reasonable ones would support this.