The statutory sick pay changes 2026 took effect on 6 April and they land harder on care than on most sectors. Care homes run on part time and bank staff, many of them below the old earnings threshold, and sickness in care is not rare. If you manage a home or a small domiciliary service, three things about sick pay changed on that date and all three cost money from the first week.
What changed on 6 April 2026
The Employment Rights Act 2025 rewrote the sick pay rules through commencement regulations that took effect on 6 April 2026. Gov.uk sets out the current position.
First, the three waiting days have gone. Statutory sick pay is now paid from the first qualifying day of sickness, not the fourth. Under the old rules a carer off Monday to Wednesday with a stomach bug got nothing. Now they are paid for all three days.
Second, the lower earnings limit no longer applies. Until April, anyone earning under 125 pounds a week got no statutory sick pay at all. That threshold caught a lot of care staff on eight or twelve hour contracts. The government’s own estimate was that removing it brings around 1.3 million more employees into sick pay. A fair share of them work in care.
Third, the rate is now the lower of two figures: 123.25 pounds a week, or 80 per cent of the person’s normal weekly earnings. Normal weekly earnings are averaged over the eight weeks before the absence. Someone on full time care pay gets the flat 123.25. Someone who earns 100 pounds a week on a short contract gets 80 pounds.
What it means for a care home manager
The practical effect is that sick pay is now due on almost every sickness absence, however short and however small the contract. Payroll has to calculate it rather than apply a flat figure, because the 80 per cent rule means different staff get different amounts.
You need an average weekly earnings figure for every employee, kept up to date. For bank staff whose hours swing from week to week this is the part most likely to go wrong. The eight week average is the rule, so a bank worker who did three long weeks and five quiet ones gets 80 per cent of that average, not of their busiest week.
Statutory sick pay is still paid for up to 28 weeks in any one period of sickness, and it is still an employer cost. There is no scheme to reclaim it from HMRC. The old Percentage Threshold Scheme was abolished in 2014 and nothing has replaced it.
One transitional point. Anyone who was already off sick and receiving sick pay before 6 April keeps their old entitlement for that continuous absence. The new rules apply to absences that started on or after that date.
Evidence and notification have not changed
The rules on proving sickness are the same as before. Staff self certify for the first seven days, including days they were not due to work. From the eighth day they need a fit note. You can set your own notification deadline in the contract or handbook; if you have not set one, the law gives the employee seven days to tell you.
It is worth checking that your absence policy actually says what the deadline is. Since sick pay now starts on day one, a clear rule on when and how staff report sickness matters more than it did, because there is no longer a three day buffer while you work out whether an absence is real.
Agency staff and who pays
Gov.uk confirms that agency workers may be entitled to statutory sick pay. Where an agency worker is paid through the agency’s PAYE, the agency is the one paying it, not the client. If you use Flamingo Workforce for cover, the sick pay for our people is our cost and our administration. You are invoiced for hours worked and nothing else.
That is one of the quieter reasons small employers move some of their cover to an agency after a change like this. A home with twelve part time staff who previously earned below the threshold now carries sick pay for all twelve. The same shifts filled through an agency carry none.
Four things to do this week
Check your payroll software is applying the 80 per cent rule and paying from day one. Most updated in April, but not every small provider runs the latest version.
Pull an average weekly earnings figure for every member of staff on a variable contract and make sure it refreshes each pay run.
Read your absence policy and confirm it states a reporting deadline and the fit note rule at day eight.
Look at your sickness cost for the last quarter against the same quarter last year. If it has climbed, that is the change working as intended, and it is a number to have in front of you before you set next year’s rates.
Flamingo Workforce supplies vetted support workers, care assistants and nurses to care homes and domiciliary providers across the UK. Sick pay, holiday pay and compliance for our staff sit with us. If you want to talk through how cover would work for your service, get in touch through flamingoworkforce.com/contact.