Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) changes from April 2026: what dental practices need to know

The rules on Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) have changed from April 2026. If you are a dental practice owner or manager, and you have employed staff, you need to be aware of these changes. 

These new rules will affect anyone you employ such as associate dentists on payroll, hygienists, nurses and reception staff.

What changed with SSP?

Under the previous rules before April 2026, employed staff were required to wait three unpaid “waiting days” before their SSP started. They also had to earn above the Lower Earning Limit to qualify for SSP at all. 

The new rules from April 2026: 

• SSP is now paid from the first qualifying day of sickness absence. There are no longer 3 “waiting days” before it kicks in. 
• The Lower Earnings Limit has been removed. This means that SSP now covers part-time, casual and lower paid staff. 
• The rate is either £123.25 a week or 80% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower, rather than a flat rate. 

SSP is only payable for an employee’s qualifying days, the days they’re normally contracted to work. Now that waiting days have been removed, the first qualifying day becomes the trigger for payment. If a practice’s payroll records hold the wrong working pattern for someone, the wrong day one gets identified, the wrong number of qualifying days gets counted, and the SSP payment is wrong from the first pay run to which it applies.

This matters most for staff on part-time, term-time, zero-hours, annualised-hours or recently changed rotas, which is exactly the group the removal of the Lower Earnings Limit now brings into scope for the first time.

Transitional SSP rules

• Sickness starting before 6 April 2026: old rules apply, including any waiting days already served.
• Sickness starting on or after 6 April 2026: new rules apply from day one.
• Employees already receiving SSP when the change took effect move onto the new weekly rate, with protection so their payment doesn’t fall under the new calculation.

What dental practices should check

• Whether current payroll records hold an accurate working pattern for every employee, particularly anyone whose hours vary.
• Whether any employee’s contracted days have changed in the last 12 months without payroll being told.
• Whether sickness absence dates are being passed to payroll promptly, rather than at the next scheduled run.

Ensuring your data is accurate is essential to getting the new day-one calculation accurate. If you outsource, offshore or contract out your payroll to an accountant, confirm with them that the data has been recorded correctly as soon as possible.

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