I want to flag a change under the Employment Rights Act 2025 that is already in force and that requires a specific update to your sickness absence policy.

Two things have changed. First, the lower earnings limit for Statutory Sick Pay has been abolished. Workers who previously earned below approximately £123 a week were not entitled to SSP at all. From April 2026, every employee is entitled to SSP regardless of what they earn. If you employ part-time or low-paid workers, you now have SSP obligations you didn’t have before.

Second, and affecting every employer: the three waiting days have been removed. SSP was previously not payable until the fourth day of absence. It is now payable from day one. Every episode of short-term sickness absence, across your entire workforce, now triggers a payment obligation from the very first day.

The immediate consequence: any sickness absence policy which references waiting days is now inaccurate. A policy containing incorrect information about employee entitlements creates risk.
Beyond the policy update, the removal of waiting days changes the economics of short-term absence management. Managers who previously took a relaxed approach to one or two day absences – in part because there was no payment obligation – now need to understand that every absence costs money from day one. Return-to-work procedures, trigger points, and manager conversations around patterns of short-term absence all need revisiting.

For those of you who are not my clients on a retainer I’d like to offer you a fixed-price SSP policy review: a thorough update to your sickness absence policy to reflect the new rules, with revised manager guidance and updated trigger points. This is a defined piece of work with a clear deliverable, and every employer needs to have it done.

The cost is £180 + VAT, and I can deliver this within 5 working days of instruction.

Can I put together a short proposal for you?