In the event that an employee is unable to work due to illness, they might be eligible for Statutory Sick Pay. They must have been away from work for at most four consecutive days (not counting non-working days).
These are the ‘holding up’ days. You start paying SSP on the fourth qualifying day (the day that your employee is expected to work). If an employee has worked more than a minute before returning home from work, a day is not considered a day off.
Your sick pay plan may be different from the standard SSP rate. If you do have one, it is a good idea to include it in your employee agreements. Plans like these are called ‘authoritative or ‘word-related’ wiped out wages. It is important to Keeping In Touch days track of all sick and sick pay entitlements for your employees.
The UK SSP rate
In 2021-22, the SSP rate is PS96.35 per week up to 28 weeks for employees who have been too ill to work. In 2020-21, the SSP rate was HTML95.85 per week.
If your employee is not off sick for the entire week, you can use a daily SSP Rate. The daily SSP rate is dependent on the number of qualifying days that your employee works and how often they are off sick.
The daily SSP rate can be viewed at gov.uk
What does your sick leave mean for your holiday entitlement?
You can normally develop a month of legal paid occasion time if you are on sick leave. This is similar to another representative. A representative’s legal occasion qualification (accumulated) is created (wiped out) while they are absent from work. Any statutory holiday privileges that aren’t used due to sickness can be carried over into the next leave year. If a representative becomes sick during vacation or a short time before, they can take it as wiped-out leave.
Employees can ask to be paid for time off due to illness. This may be done if they are unable to meet the requirements for debilitated compensatory. All guidelines regarding wiped-out leave will apply in all cases.
What are the best times to get a medical certificate?
When you are on sick leave, your boss might ask for a medical certificate from the GP. In the event that you are absent from work for more than two days, your boss may ask you to provide a medical testament. The medical testament should indicate when you expect to return to work. Your employer may request week-by-week medical certificates if you are likely to be out of work for a long time.
What happens if I’m off sick on public holidays?
If you work long hours and are sick during a public holiday you may be eligible for ill compensation or Illness benefit. Your manager might consider you to be not on sick leave and pay you the same as usual for that day. In this case, your manager may not consider the public holiday to be sick leave.
You are eligible to take time off work if you work part-time or are sick during a public holiday if you have worked at least 40 hours for your employer in the preceding five weeks.
What happens to my annual vacation when I’m off sick?
If you get sick during your annual leave, and you have a medical certificate, those days will not be counted as yearly leave days. You can use the same number of days as yearly leaves in the future, provided that all other things are equal. If you have a valid medical certificate, an employer cannot force you to take annual leave on sick days.
As long as you have a valid medical certificate, you can still qualify for your yearly leave. If you’re on long-term leave and are unable to take your yearly leaves due to sickness, you can transfer it over for up 15 months from the end of the year it was obtained. If you are able to find work elsewhere within these 15 months, you should get an instalment instead of the sick leave.
To calculate your employee’s sick leave, you can either use the SP Calculator or these rates. Follow The UK Government to get the latest information about sick pay rates and calculate your employees’ statutory sick pay manually.
