If you are due to rotate training posts after ~29/40 (11th week before your EWC), you have the right to:
Choose not to rotate to another hospital and remain at your current post until delivery
Choose to rotate as planned (if agreed by the deanery and both your current and next employer)
Although there is no official deadline in which to tell you TPD about your pregnancy, if possible, it is useful to tell them by 14 weeks as this may affect rotations, which require 3 months’ notice of changes.
You have the right to choose to return to work either:
The same post you left from
The next planned post
Scroll to the bottom of the this page for a more in depth summary of these references and your rights
Whether you rotate or not will not affect your parental pay
Moving between training posts (and therefore employers) won't break the 26-week of continuous service of employment needed to be eligible for statutory leave and pay. The receiving trust will arrange this payment
The receiving trust will arrange your occupational payments even if you have rotated after the 11th week before your EWC if you are rotating due to training posts
If you are rotating outside of training posts, but still working within the NHS, your parental pay will also not be affected, just which employer pays what may change.
This page here explains everything around moving hospitals and your parental pay. There are also some handy flowcharts at the bottom of the page to help work out your situation and where your pay will come from.
If your contract ends after 29/40 (after the 11th week before your EWC)
You will be entitled to both Statutory Parental Pay and Occupational Parental Pay
If your contract ends after 25/40 but before 29/40 (after the 15th week before your EWC but before the 11th week before your EWC)
You will be entitled to Statutory Parental Pay but not Occupational Parental Pay
If your contract ends before 25/40 (before the 15th week before your EWC)
You won’t be entitled to any Statutory Parental Pay or Occupational Parental Pay
You may be entitled to claim Maternity Allowance (MA)
Summary: You have the right to choose:
Whether to rotate as planned or not after the ~29/40 (11th week before your EWC)
Whether you return to the same post you left from or rotate to the next planned post following your leave
NHS Employers: Reference
“If the employee is entitled to OMP and their contract of employment expires after the 11th week before her EWC, then the terms and conditions state that the employer must extend the contract to allow them to remain employed during the period of maternity leave, as to allow them to receive the 52 weeks, which includes paid occupational and statutory maternity / adoption / shared parental pay, and the remaining 13 weeks of unpaid maternity / adoption / shared parental leave.
In addition, the contract should be extended for any agreed additional period to enable them to complete any training missed during that leave if necessary.”
Regardless of the above, if all parties agree that it would be in the best interests of the doctor for her to rotate (all parties being employer A, employer B, the deanery and the doctor) then the doctor should have the option to rotate. No single party can be forced to accept the decision of the other parties if they have concerns and should there be any disagreements then the default provisions of the terms and conditions as detailed above will automatically apply.”
BMA: Reference
“ If you are on a planned rotation of appointments with one or more NHS employers as part of an agreed programme of training, you have the right to return to work:
in the same post or
in the next planned post
irrespective of whether the contract would otherwise have ended, if pregnancy and childbirth had not occurred. Your contract will be extended to enable you to complete the agreed programme of training”
However, …
HEE say: Reference
“It is not always possible for trainees to return to the same post that they occupied prior to taking parental leave. Often, another trainee will have rotated into the vacancy. In these cases, your Training Programme Director will work with you to identify a suitable training post for you to return to within the programme that will meet your training needs.”
Therefore we recommend you talk to your TPD as soon as possible to discuss the above to come to an agreed solution.
Summary: If you are a doctor in a rotational training programme, this will not affect your entitlement to occupational pay or receipt of the equivalent to statutory pay
Detailed info here:
NHS employers – General maternity guidance for rotational doctors and dentists in training
“Under a single lead employer arrangement, a move between posts on rotation will not break the 26-week continuity of employment requirement for SMP purposes....
...Where an employee changes employer because their training programme has required them to do so, and this means they do not have enough statutory continuous service with their current employer to access statutory maternity pay, statutory adoption pay, or statutory shared parental pay, the employee shall be paid, by their current employer, the value of statutory maternity / adoption / shared parental pay they would have otherwise received if their statutory continuity had not been broken by their change of employer.
If the doctor moves to a new employer (hereafter referred to as employer B) before her baby is born, the first employer (hereafter referred to as employer A) is still liable to pay SMP. SMP payments from employer A cease at the end of the 39 weeks of SMP entitlement or on the doctor’s return to work after the birth, whichever is the sooner. Should the doctor choose to return to work before the end of their SMP entitlement, she should communicate the date of her return to work to employer A as well as employer B to ensure that overpayments of SMP do not occur.”