NHS sick pay

This is an estimate from a published scale, not a statement of entitlement. Your reckonable service and the aggregation of past absence are your employer’s to determine, and your trust’s own sickness absence policy sits on top of Section 14 rather than replacing it.

The scale

Paragraph 14.2 sets sick pay by length of service. This table is identical in all three printings of Section 14 — England, Wales, and Scotland with Northern Ireland — so it is the one part of this subject that genuinely is UK-wide.

Does NHS sick pay include enhancements?

It depends where you work — and this is the part a single UK-wide table gets wrong. The handbook prints Section 14 three times, and paragraph 14.4 — the definition of full pay — is different in each. It decides whether your unsocial hours count while you are off, which for anyone on nights or weekends is a large part of their pay.

England is the outlier and the one most likely to disappoint. Its 14.4 gives the wider “as if you had been at work” definition only to staff who were on Handbook terms at 30 June 2018 earning £18,160 or less, and to injury-related absence. Everyone else — including every new starter since 1 July 2018 — falls under 14.5: the pay point, plus any high cost area supplement and locally agreed protection, and nothing for nights or weekends.

Wales withholds regularly paid supplements for the first week only, then pays as if you had been at work. Scotland and Northern Ireland share one printing of the section, and it is the most generous of the three: supplements are included for everyone from the first day.

When does NHS sick pay reset?

It does not reset on a date. Paragraph 14.7 (14.6 in the Scotland and Northern Ireland printing) works the other way round: on the first day of an absence, your employer takes the entitlement for your service and deducts the aggregate of paid sickness absence in the twelve months immediately preceding that day. The window moves with you, so entitlement returns gradually as older absence falls out of the back of it rather than all at once in April.

That is why the calculator above asks what you have already had. Six years’ service does not mean six months of full pay available today; it means six months less whatever the last twelve months have used. Some absences are disregarded in that aggregation — injury at work, and absence covered by injury allowance among them — and whether yours qualifies is your employer’s determination, not an arithmetic one.

Does NHS sick pay include SSP?

Yes — inside it, not on top. Full pay has to be inclusive of statutory benefits, and statutory sick pay added to half pay cannot exceed full pay (14.6; 14.5 in the Scotland and Northern Ireland printing). In practice that means half pay plus SSP, not half pay alone — so half pay is not half your pay: the drop is real but usually smaller than the word “half” suggests. The same cap covers any other statutory or compensation benefit paid alongside it (14.8; 14.7 in the Scotland and Northern Ireland printing).

Questions people ask

Paragraph numbers here are England’s and Wales’s. In the Scotland and Northern Ireland printing, from 14.5 on, each is one lower.

Do I get NHS sick pay in my first year?

Yes, from the start. The first step of the scale is 1 month at full pay and 2 months at half pay “during the first year of service” (14.2). The handbook sets no waiting period before it and says nothing about probation; NHS service you had before this job may move you up the scale.

What are the stages and triggers in NHS sickness policies?

They are not in Section 14. The handbook sets the pay; the stages, and how much absence triggers each one, are in your employer’s sickness absence policy, which Annex 26 asks employers to write with their local staff representatives. In Scotland the policy is national: the NHS Scotland Attendance Policy, one of its “Once for Scotland” workforce policies. Elsewhere, ask for your trust’s or board’s own.

Does NHS sick pay include weekends and bank holidays?

The handbook counts sick pay in months, not working days, and does not say how a weekend inside an absence is counted — your employer’s policy does. One rule it does state: if you are sick on a bank holiday, you do not get another day off for it (14.9).

What happens when my sick pay runs out?

It can come back at half pay. After twelve months of continuous sickness absence, sick pay that has run out is reinstated at half pay where the final review meeting has been delayed by your employer: with more than five years’ reckonable service, if it ran out before that meeting; with less, if the meeting has not happened within twelve months of the absence starting. It runs until the meeting and does not pay back months already spent at zero (14.10 to 14.12). Your employer can also extend sick pay beyond the scale, with particular thought for staff who have not yet built up full entitlement and could return soon (14.13).

Can I go back on reduced hours?

During a return from sickness, employers should allow reduced hours, or working from home where possible, without loss of pay, within the statutory sick pay rules (14.14).

What if I leave while I am off sick?

Sick pay stops on your last day of employment (14.3).

Does pregnancy-related sickness count?

In the last four weeks before the week your baby is due, a pregnancy-related absence normally starts your maternity leave instead (15.26), though odd days can be disregarded if you want to keep working to the date you planned (15.27). Before then it is sickness absence under the normal rules. NHS maternity pay covers what you are paid from then on.

Where else this service counts

The step of the scale you are on is set by reckonable service, and paragraph 12.1 counts continuous previous employment with any NHS employer towards it — the same service that decides your annual leave tier, your maternity entitlement and your redundancy payment. A move between trusts does not restart it, and nor does a gap between NHS jobs of twelve months or less: paragraph 12.5 still counts the earlier service towards sick pay.

One payment is explicitly counted in: paragraph 4.2 excludes the high cost area supplement from the rate used for overtime, unsocial hours and on-call, and then names sick pay as the exception — so in London it is in your sick pay, even though it is not in your overtime rate.

What this does not cover

• Whether a particular absence is disregarded under 14.7 (14.6 in the Scotland and Northern Ireland printing) — that is a determination, not a calculation.
• Injury allowance under Section 22, which is a separate scheme with its own conditions.
• Ill-health retirement, which is a pension decision and deliberately out of scope on this site.
• Bank and agency staff, whose sick leave arrangements are not Section 14’s.
• Anything about whether you should be at work. This is arithmetic on a published scale.