Statutory Sick Pay and time off sick

SSP is for employees. You must have an employment contract, have done some work under it, and be sick for at least four consecutive days including days you would not normally work. That four-day period is called a period of incapacity for work.

You must also tell your employer within their deadline, or within seven days if they have not set one. Employers can set their own notification rules but cannot require notification more often than once a week during a long absence, cannot insist it is in person, cannot require a particular form, and cannot demand a fit note earlier than the statutory point.

The historic earnings condition excluded anyone earning below the National Insurance lower earnings limit — disproportionately part-time workers, most of them women, and people holding several small jobs. That exclusion is being removed under the Employment Rights Act 2025, with a percentage-of-earnings floor replacing it for low earners. This is the single most significant change to sick pay in decades, and whether it applies to a particular absence depends on the commencement date.

Workers who are not employees — genuinely self-employed contractors, and most people classed as 'workers' rather than 'employees' — are outside SSP altogether. If you believe you have been misclassified, that is worth challenging, because employment status is determined by the reality of the working relationship rather than by what the contract says.

Agency workers can qualify, and the agency is usually the employer for SSP purposes. Zero-hours workers can qualify too, provided the earnings and continuity conditions are met — the absence of guaranteed hours does not by itself exclude you.

Certain groups cannot get SSP: people already receiving Statutory Maternity Pay or Maternity Allowance, those in the disqualifying period around childbirth, and people who have already had 28 weeks of SSP in a linked period. In each of these cases the employer must issue form SSP1 so you can claim other support instead.

Tell your employer you are sick as soon as you reasonably can, on the first day if possible, following whatever their absence policy says. Late notification can lose you SSP for the days before you told them, so this genuinely matters.

For the first seven calendar days you self-certify. That means telling the employer you were ill, usually on a form on your return. A GP does not need to be involved, and a GP surgery is not obliged to provide a note for a short absence — asking for one is a common waste of an appointment.

From the eighth day you need a fit note. Since 2022 these can be issued by nurses, occupational therapists, pharmacists and physiotherapists as well as by doctors, which was intended to relieve pressure on GP appointments and is still not widely known. They can be issued after a consultation by phone or video as well as in person.

A fit note has two options. 'Not fit for work' is the one people expect. 'May be fit for work' is the more useful one — it says you could work with adjustments, and lists what would help: a phased return, altered hours, amended duties, workplace adaptations. If your employer cannot accommodate the adjustments, the note is treated as though it said not fit for work, so there is no downside to your clinician suggesting them.

Employers can ask for reasonable evidence but cannot require a private medical certificate at your expense, cannot demand a fit note for the first seven days, and cannot require a diagnosis. A fit note does not have to name your condition, and you are not obliged to disclose it.

Keep copies of everything: the fit notes, the dates you notified the employer, and any correspondence about adjustments. Sick pay disputes and dismissal disputes both turn on dates and documents.

If your employer refuses SSP, ask for form SSP1 setting out why. That form is what you take to the DWP to claim Employment and Support Allowance or Universal Credit instead, and an employer is required to provide it. If you disagree with the reason, HMRC's Statutory Payment Disputes Team can make a formal decision on your entitlement.

Many employers pay more than SSP under the contract — full pay for a period, then half pay, then SSP alone. This is contractual or occupational sick pay, and where it exists it is enforceable as a contractual term. Check the contract, the staff handbook and any collective agreement, because the entitlement is often better than people assume and is frequently service-related.

Contractual sick pay usually includes SSP rather than sitting on top of it — the employer pays the contractual amount, of which SSP forms part. An employer cannot pay less than SSP, but there is no requirement to pay SSP in addition to a more generous contractual scheme.

Discretionary schemes are different from contractual ones. Where sick pay is expressed as discretionary, the employer must still exercise the discretion rationally and not arbitrarily or discriminatorily, but there is no automatic entitlement. Where it has been paid consistently over years it may have become a contractual term by custom and practice.

Public sector schemes are generally the most generous and the most clearly documented — NHS, teaching, civil service and local government schemes typically provide months of full and half pay on a sliding scale linked to length of service. If you work in one of these, read the scheme rather than relying on general advice about SSP.

Some employers operate absence trigger points — a set number of absence occasions or days in a rolling period that prompts a formal review. These are lawful management tools, but applying them mechanically to disability-related absence without adjusting the trigger is a common source of discrimination claims.

Annual leave continues to accrue throughout sick leave, including during unpaid absence after SSP has run out. You can take annual leave during sick leave, which is sometimes financially sensible because it is paid at your normal rate rather than at SSP. If sickness prevents you taking leave in the holiday year, you are generally entitled to carry a period of it forward.

SSP stops after 28 weeks of a period of incapacity. Separate absences link together if they are eight weeks or less apart, so a pattern of recurring absence can exhaust the 28 weeks without any single period looking long.

The employer must give you form SSP1 when SSP is about to end, ideally before the last payment. That form is the gateway to what comes next, and delays in getting it delay the claim that replaces your income.

The main replacements are 'new style' Employment and Support Allowance, which is contribution-based and does not depend on savings or a partner's income, and Universal Credit, which is means-tested. Many people claim both — new style ESA for the contributory element and Universal Credit for housing and other elements. Which combination applies depends on your National Insurance record and your household circumstances.

Both routes involve a Work Capability Assessment to decide whether you have limited capability for work, and whether you also have limited capability for work-related activity. The second finding removes work search requirements and adds an element to a Universal Credit award, so the assessment has a direct financial consequence and is worth preparing for with medical evidence rather than treating as a formality.

Personal Independence Payment is different again and is often missed. It is not means-tested, is not about your ability to work, and is paid on the basis of the difficulty a long-term condition causes with daily living and mobility. You can receive it while working, while on SSP, and alongside other benefits. In Scotland it has been replaced by Adult Disability Payment, administered by Social Security Scotland.

Claim early. All of these have processing times, some have waiting periods, and the gap between SSP ending and a replacement starting is where the financial damage happens.

Yes. A fit note does not protect your job. Dismissal for long-term sickness is potentially fair on the grounds of capability, provided the employer follows a fair procedure — which means consulting you, obtaining up-to-date medical evidence, considering how long the absence is likely to last, considering adjustments and alternative roles, and warning you that dismissal is being considered before it happens.

Where the health condition amounts to a disability under the Equality Act 2010 — a physical or mental impairment with a substantial and long-term adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities — additional duties apply. The employer must make reasonable adjustments, and dismissal may be discrimination arising from disability unless it can be objectively justified.

Reasonable adjustments are not confined to physical alterations. Phased returns, altered duties, changed hours, working from home, redeploying to a different role, relaxing absence trigger points, and allowing time off for treatment have all been held to be reasonable adjustments in the right circumstances. The duty is on the employer, but in practice you are far more likely to get an adjustment you have asked for in writing.

Occupational health referrals are common and are usually helpful rather than adversarial. The report goes to the employer, but you generally have the right to see it before it is sent under the Access to Medical Reports Act where it comes from your own doctor, and you can comment on factual inaccuracies.

An employer who dismisses without consulting, without medical evidence, or without considering adjustments is exposed to unfair dismissal and disability discrimination claims. Employment tribunal claims are subject to a strict time limit — normally three months less one day from the dismissal — and you must contact Acas for early conciliation first in England, Wales and Scotland.

Ill-health retirement is a separate route worth checking if you are in an occupational pension scheme, particularly a public sector one. It can provide immediate access to pension benefits, sometimes enhanced, and it is a materially better outcome than a capability dismissal for someone who will not return to work. Scheme rules and medical criteria vary, and the application usually has to be made before employment ends.

Statutory Sick Pay operates in Northern Ireland under separate but broadly parallel legislation. The practical position is similar, but the administering department is different and the Employment Rights Act 2025 does not extend to Northern Ireland, so reforms to waiting days and the earnings limit apply in Great Britain and not automatically across the whole UK.

Acas covers England, Wales and Scotland only. The equivalent body in Northern Ireland is the Labour Relations Agency, and it is the LRA rather than Acas that handles early conciliation before an industrial tribunal claim there.

Employment law is otherwise largely reserved to Westminster for Great Britain, so sick pay, unfair dismissal and discrimination rules are the same in England, Wales and Scotland. What differs across all four nations is health service provision — who can issue a fit note and how you access a GP or an occupational health service varies with the health system you are in.

Disability benefits diverge more sharply. Personal Independence Payment has been replaced in Scotland by Adult Disability Payment, administered by Social Security Scotland with a different assessment approach and no private-sector assessment providers. Northern Ireland retains PIP under its own department.

If you work in one nation and live in another — which is common along the Scottish and Welsh borders and for anyone working remotely — your employment rights follow your employment, while your health and disability benefit arrangements follow where you live. That split catches people out.

Whatever your nation, the practical sequence is the same: notify promptly, self-certify then obtain a fit note, ask for adjustments in writing, get SSP1 before SSP ends, claim the replacement support early, and take advice before agreeing to anything that ends your employment.