Statutory Sick Pay Decision Letter UK | Word & PDF Template

A Statutory Sick Pay decision letter is a written notification from employer to employee confirming the outcome of an SSP assessment for a specific period of sickness absence. It is not the absence policy, and it is not the fit note. It is the decision itself: the employee was off from a stated date, you assessed eligibility against the statutory rules, and this is the result, set out so that payroll, the employee, and any future reader all see the same thing.

People often confuse this letter with two neighbours. The first is the self-certification form, which the employee completes for short absences and which feeds into your decision rather than replacing it. The second is form SSP1, the statutory exclusion notice you must issue when an employee does not qualify for SSP or when their entitlement is ending, so they can claim Universal Credit or Employment and Support Allowance instead. A decision letter can sit alongside an SSP1, but it does a different job: it explains the reasoning in plain English and confirms the approved dates for your own records. Where the absence overlaps with annual or family leave, the letter also stops the two entitlements being quietly conflated, which is why it pairs naturally with the rest of your UK leave request and absence templates.

Statutory Sick Pay is a creature of statute, not contract, and it changed more in 2026 than it had in decades. The governing instruments are the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 and the Statutory Sick Pay (General) Regulations 1982, both now read subject to the reforms introduced by the Employment Rights Act 2025. From 6 April 2026 the old machinery that most managers still carry in their heads no longer applies, and a decision letter that repeats the pre-2026 rules is worse than no letter at all because it misstates the employee's rights in writing.

Two changes matter most. First, the three unpaid waiting days are gone: SSP is now payable from the first qualifying day of sickness, so an employee off for a single day can be entitled where before they received nothing. Second, the lower earnings limit that previously screened out lower-paid and part-time staff has been removed, meaning eligibility no longer turns on whether the worker earned roughly £123 a week. The amount itself is now the lower of 80% of the employee's average weekly earnings or the flat weekly rate of £123.25 for 2026/27, worked out by reference to the days the employee normally works. If your letter still refers to "the first three waiting days" or an earnings threshold, it is legally wrong and should not be sent.

Enforcement has hardened too. The new Fair Work Agency has powers to pursue SSP non-compliance, which makes accurate records and prompt payment a practical necessity rather than good housekeeping. The authoritative starting point for the current position is the Acas guidance on statutory sick pay eligibility and the 2026 reforms. Absences connected to a disability also engage the Equality Act 2010, so a decision that is technically correct on SSP can still be unlawful if it ignores the duty to make reasonable adjustments.

The obvious trigger is an employee returning from, or remaining on, sickness absence where you need to confirm in writing what they will be paid. A verbal "yes, you'll get sick pay" is the seed of most later complaints, because the employee hears a guarantee and you meant something more conditional. Issue the letter as soon as the eligibility position is clear, ideally before the next payroll run so the figures on the payslip match the figures in the letter.

You also need it when you are saying no. Telling someone they do not qualify is harder than telling them they do, and doing it in a measured letter, with the reason and the route to other support, is far safer than a hurried message. Where the answer is no, the decision letter should be issued alongside the statutory SSP1 form, not instead of it, because the SSP1 is what lets the employee claim other benefits. A separate situation arises when an absence is long and you are confirming that the 28-week SSP maximum is approaching, which the employee needs to plan around. The harder edge cases are the ones that justify a careful template. An employee whose sickness absences fall within 56 days of each other forms a single linked period, so the entitlement clock does not reset, and a letter that treats each spell as fresh will overpay or underpay. The other classic is the disability-related absence, where a correct SSP calculation can still sit inside an unlawful pattern of treatment, and the letter should be drafted with that risk in mind rather than as a pure payroll note. If the absence is being managed alongside a formal process, align the wording with your UK dismissal letter that follows the ACAS Code so the two documents do not contradict each other.

• The identification and absence dates open the letter by naming the employee, their role, and the precise first and last days of the sickness period being assessed. Confirming approved dates in writing is the single most useful function of the document, because it removes the "agreed in the corridor" dispute where nobody can later say which days were actually authorised.
• The eligibility determination states plainly whether the employee qualifies for SSP and applies the current statutory test rather than the pre-2026 one. It is drafted so that a positive decision does not accidentally imply a guarantee for future absences, and a negative decision gives the genuine reason rather than a vague refusal.
• The payment detail sets out the weekly rate applied, the qualifying days used in the calculation, and the period covered, so payroll can act on the letter without a second conversation. Where the earnings-linked figure bites, the clause explains why the amount is lower than the headline flat rate.
• The evidence and certification clause records what was relied on: the employee's self-certification for the first seven calendar days, and the fit note required after that. It avoids asking for medical detail the law does not entitle you to see, keeping the request proportionate under data protection principles.
• The SSP1 and signposting clause appears where the employee does not qualify or is reaching the 28-week limit, confirming that an SSP1 is enclosed and pointing the employee toward the benefits they can claim instead. Pairing this with a clean record of the decision protects both sides if the matter is ever reviewed.

Statutory Sick Pay is a single UK-wide regime, so the same statutory rate, eligibility test, and 28-week maximum apply in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland without the local variation you see in tenancy or family law. An employer in Glasgow and an employer in Cardiff assess SSP identically, and the Employment Rights Act 2025 changes took effect everywhere on the same date. This is one of the few areas of UK employment administration where you do not need to ask which nation the worker is in before answering the pay question.

The variation that does matter is contractual rather than geographic. Many employers operate an occupational or company sick pay scheme that sits on top of SSP, often paying full salary for a set number of weeks before dropping to the statutory floor. Where that is the case, the decision letter should make clear which layer it is dealing with, because an employee who reads "you qualify for sick pay" may assume the enhanced contractual rate when you mean the statutory minimum. The terms of any enhanced scheme will live in the contract or the staff handbook, so the letter should cross-refer to those documents rather than restate them. If your contractual sick pay terms are unclear or outdated, that is a contract problem to fix at source, for example through your Section 1 statement of written particulars, not something to patch over in a one-off decision letter. Northern Ireland operates parallel legislation in some employment areas, but for SSP the position mirrors Great Britain, so a template drafted to the current statutory rules works across the whole United Kingdom.

You begin by entering the employer and employee details and the exact dates of the sickness absence, because everything else in the letter depends on the period being defined precisely. From there the template asks whether the employee meets the current eligibility test, and it deliberately does not surface the old waiting-days or earnings-threshold language, so you cannot accidentally apply the pre-2026 rules. Once you confirm eligibility, you enter the qualifying days the employee normally works and the average weekly earnings figure where relevant, and the document frames the payment outcome around those inputs.

If the decision is that the employee does not qualify, the letter shifts tone and prompts you to enclose an SSP1 and to signpost alternative support, rather than leaving a bare refusal. You then add any reference to a contractual sick pay scheme so the statutory figure is not mistaken for an enhanced one. The final step is to record the evidence relied on, the self-certification or fit note, and to date and sign the letter for your records. The output downloads in editable Word and clean PDF so you can keep a consistent house style across every absence decision, much as you would with a zero-hours contract template for irregular staff.

The most damaging error is sending a letter built on the old SSP rules. Plenty of templates still in circulation talk about three unpaid waiting days and a lower earnings limit, and using one now misstates the employee's entitlement in writing, which is exactly the kind of document that surfaces against you later. The second common failure is implying that SSP is guaranteed. A warm, reassuring letter that says the employee "will of course be looked after" reads as a promise, and if the statutory criteria are not met you have created an expectation you cannot honour. State the position as a decision under the rules, not as a favour.

Managers also routinely forget that linked periods within 56 days are treated as one continuous absence, so they reset the clock with each spell and either overpay or, worse, deny entitlement that has actually carried over. Another frequent slip is treating a disability-related absence as a pure payroll matter; the SSP figure can be perfectly correct while the wider handling breaches the Equality Act 2010. Finally, employers either ask for too much medical evidence too early, demanding a fit note inside the first seven days when self-certification is sufficient, or they fail to issue the SSP1 when someone does not qualify, leaving the worker unable to claim other support. Keep the evidence request proportionate and the signposting complete, and most of these problems disappear. If absence has tipped into a capability process, make sure your redundancy notice letter compliant with the ERA 1996 or other formal documents do not cut across the sick pay position.