NHS maternity leave/annual leave

[Bixy14]

Hi hoping someone familiar with NHS T&Cs can help me with a mat leave conundrum - especially if this has applied to you!

My baby is due in March 2026, I have no annual leave left this year so will likely start my Mat leave in early March and take 52 weeks Mat.

When I return in 2027 I’ll have accrued 7.8 weeks leave so I’ll be able to take 4 of those weeks to get me til April, but my trust’s policy is to only let you carry over max 1 week of AL - so when am I supposed to use the other 3.8 weeks?? It has been suggested that I start my mat leave early (in Feb) and then take most of the 2026/27 AL entitlement in 2027 before April, but I’d obviously much rather be off after my mat leave with my baby than have 6 weeks off prior to even being due to give birth?

What can I do mumsnetters, is it just the way the cookie crumbles??

They should let you take it after. Their 1 week carry over policy shouldn’t apply when it’s all next year’s leave. They could make you take 25/26 leave pre birth but shouldn’t make you take 26/27 and should let you carry over

The usual rules regarding carry over of annual leave don’t apply with mat leave. If you’re taking the full year off, you’ll accrue a full year of annual leave. If they did say “no more than one week” then it would be impossible for anyone to take it!
I had a full year off and added my accrued leave to the end. So I had almost 14m off in total, and was paid in full for the last 33 days. I don’t know if I had to take it all in one chunk as that was always my preference. But, the bottom line is your trust cannot stop you from accruing and taking the full year’s worth of leave.

(But as far as I know you will need to take your 25-26 leave before you go off)

In fact that seems to be consistent across all the NHS policies I’ve just checked , you must take all leave accrued directly post mat leave except for normal carry over. So you come back March with 7.8 weeks leave and you therefore must take 6.8 weeks immediately post mat leave, leaving you 5 days to play with (although they could insist you take that too)

they can’t insist you take it pre mat leave as not yet accrued. What if you decided to come back in September and wanted that leave?

Thanks all, I think I’ll go back to my manager about this and check the carry over situation since I’ll be on maternity! :)