BBC.COM Coronavirus: Will I get sick pay?

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Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has made some changes to the sick pay system as part of his Budget.

There has been much discussion about what pay workers will get if they have to self-isolate as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

There is concern that people will be more likely to infect others if they do not have incentives to stay at home when they are at risk.

Will I get paid if I self-isolate?
Provisions for sick leave vary from company to company.

Many employees will have contracts that allow them their normal pay while they are unable to work because they are sick.

But the situation with self-isolation is more complicated - workers may not actually be sick so will not automatically be entitled to their contractual sick pay. That decision will be down to employers but the employment conciliation service Acas said it was "good practice" to offer contractual sick pay.

Even where people do not get their fully paid sick leave, or if they work in jobs where they do not have contractual sick leave, there may be minimum payments they can rely on, known as statutory sick pay.

What is statutory sick pay?
Statutory sick pay (SSP) is money paid by employers, so self-employed workers are not eligible, but casual or agency workers are.

The chancellor said that SSP would be paid to people who had been told to isolate themselves, even if they did not have any symptoms. He said people would soon be able to obtain a sick note from the NHS 111 service rather than getting one from a GP.

The rules were also changed so that those people would be eligible for SSP on their first day away from work, instead of having to wait until the fourth day as used to be the case.

He also announced that businesses with fewer than 250 employees would be able to claim back from the government two weeks of SSP paid to staff affected by coronavirus.

How much is statutory sick pay?
It is set at £94.25 a week, although of course employers could pay more if they want to.

To put that into context, average weekly earnings in the UK in December last year stood at £544 a week.

To get SSP people need to be earning at least £118 a week. Many people such as those on zero-hours contracts - who work variable hours every week - may earn less than this. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has calculated that there are two million workers who are not eligible for SSP and Labour has asked the government whether they will now be covered.

We asked the Office for National Statistics to check this figure and they estimated that there were 1,766,000 jobs done by adults in the UK that paid less than £118 a week.

The number of people involved is likely to be somewhat lower than this because one person could have more than one of these jobs. And indeed, if somebody has more than one of these jobs it could take them above the £118 a week needed to qualify.

About 70% of these jobs are done by women.


The GMB union has called on the government to force companies to give full pay to workers who are isolating themselves to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

It says that the government could use legislation that allows for staff to be suspended on full pay for up to six months for specific medical reasons involving risks of radiation or lead poisoning. The government could use a statutory instrument in Parliament to extend that to include people isolating themselves because of coronavirus.

Will self-employed people get sick pay?
Broadly speaking, employees are entitled to sick pay and self-employed people are not.

In the latest UK figures for the last three months of 2019, there were about 28 million employed people and about five million self-employed.

The government has said it will make it "quicker and easier" for self-employed people affected by coronavirus to access benefits.

The Chancellor said that those on contributory employment and support Allowance (ESA) will be able to claim from day one, instead of day eight.

He is also temporarily removing the minimum income floor from universal credit. The minimum income floor would have taken into account how much you would normally expect to earn in a month when calculating your entitlement to universal credit.

Not having the floor means they will be able to claim for time they spend off work due to sickness.

What is universal credit?
He said they would not need to attend a job centre and could apply on the phone or online instead.

The government has also announced a new £500m fund to support economically vulnerable people, which will be allocated by local authorities.

Will I get paid if I need to care for somebody else?
If you have a relative who is ill, or your children's school is closed, for example, your employer must give you time off to do so.

But your employer is not forced to pay you unless your contract requires it.