Confused about NHS maternity pay after a break in service

[danielcart]

Hi everyone,
I’m hoping someone can help because I’m getting really confused reading NHS maternity pay rules.
I recently changed jobs and my continuous NHS service was reset, so I’m trying to understand how this affects both statutory maternity pay and the enhanced NHS maternity pay.
From what I understand, SMP depends on being employed continuously up to the qualifying week (15 weeks before due date), and enhanced pay usually needs 12 months NHS service by that point. But I’m struggling to work out how this works in real-life scenarios, especially when you’ve had a break in service.
Has anyone been in a similar situation after changing NHS roles? Did you still manage to qualify for enhanced maternity pay, or did you only get SMP?
I’ve also been trying to make sense of different timelines, and I used an NHS maternity pay calculator to test a few examples, but I’m still not 100% sure I’m interpreting it correctly.
Any real experiences would be really appreciated because the guidance online is quite hard to follow.
Thanks in advance ❤️

If you were pg before starting the role you won’t qualify for SMP. What was the break in NHS employment?

I don't know what you mean by 'reset'? What has your HR department said?

If you have only changed NHS roles and you have had a break of 3 months or less, then you qualify for statutory maternity pay (ie 8 weeks full pay, 16 weeks half pay etc)

If you have changed roles but your lead NHS employer is unchanged (eg you were employed by Imperial College Healthcare NHS trust and remain employed by them) then you are also entitled to statutory maternity pay.

If you now have a new lead employer (eg you were employed by Imperial College Hospital NHS trust and now you are employed by North London NHS foundation trust) then you are possibly not eligible for statutory maternity pay but you will be able to claim maternity allowance instead, which is the same amount.

For the purposes of NHS occupational maternity pay, a “break in service” is only if you have a break of 3 months or more.

If you have only changed NHS roles and you have had a break of 3 months or less, then you qualify for statutory maternity pay (ie 8 weeks full pay, 16 weeks half pay etc)

that’s not SMP, that’s NHS mat pay.

Scrap that. OP isn’t genuine. They’ve been all over the site peddling their NHS pay calculator.