'My 70-year-old mum got paid £6.80 after two months off - is that right?'

Every week, we answer your financial problems or consumer disputes - you can email yours to moneyblog@sky.uk.

Today's problem is... My mother is 70 and has been working as a cleaner for an agency for two years.

She was unable to work for two months, January and February, due to a hand injury. She had a sick note from her GP.

She was only paid £6.80 for the full-month statutory sick pay from the agency...WD1983 Our Money live reporter Jess Sharp tackles this one - with the help of experts... Thanks for getting in touch, and sorry to hear your mum has been put in this situation - the last thing anyone needs after being ill is more stress.

The first problem is that statutory sick pay rules are complex, and working out how much you should expect, if any at all, is difficult. Money blog: Follow latest It doesn't sound like the amount your mum has been paid is correct, as statutory sick pay (SSP) is £118.75 per week in England.

SSP kicks in after you've been ill for more than three days in a row, including non-working days, and covers agency staff. If you are eligible, you cannot legally receive less than this amount, and your employer must pay it to you for up to 28 weeks of sick leave.

If you are off sick, return to work and then go off sick again within eight weeks, the second absence links to the first, so your SSP is payable from day one of the second absence and comes off your original 28-week entitlement. If more than eight weeks have passed between your first and second episodes of time off, the absences are not linked and your 28-week entitlement restarts.

SSP is then payable after the first three days during your second section of time off. But not everyone is entitled to it.

Here are some requirements that need to be met to receive it... What do you need to do to get SSP? While many company sick pay schemes start after a three-month probation period, eligible people are entitled to SSP immediately after starting, as long as they meet specific criteria.

To be eligible, you need to: Earn an average of £125 a week for at least eight weeks before you fall ill.Be classed as an employee and have done some work for your employer. If you are a worker who pays class 1 National Insurance contributions, you may qualify.Have been ill for more than three days in a row.Give your employer a fit note if you are sick for more than seven days to be eligible for SSP.If you have not told your employer you're unable to work before the deadline they set or within seven days if they haven't set one, you can lose some of your SSP.

You can get a fit note from a GP, nurse, pharmacist, occupational therapist or physiotherapist. The note needs to be signed or have the name of the person who has given it to you printed on it, or your employer might reject it.

It should state either that you are not fit for work or that you might be fit to work and should have limitations placed on the job you do. What if you're part-time? For part-time or agency workers, you can get SSP if your employer takes off tax and national insurance from your pay or you earn at least £125 a week.

This also covers people on zero-hours contracts - but the rules are slightly more nuanced. You should ask your employer for more information.

If they say no, ask them to explain why. They might say you don't have any qualifying days - these are your shifts that are on the same day from week to week.

Since the rules around all of this are quite complicated, I called in the help of Elaine Huttley, national head of employment law at Irwin Mitchell. She explained that what counts as a qualifying day can vary.

The contract of employment, or section 1 statement, may specify the qualifying day, and if not, regulation 5(2) of the SSP Regulations 1992 applies: Qualifying days are those the parties agree are, or were, working days in that week.If they agree there are no working days in a week, Wednesday is treated as the qualifying day.If there is no agreement as to which are working days, every day is treated as a qualifying day (apart from any they agree no employees would have worked)."Each week must contain at least one qualifying day. Where there is only one qualifying day in a week, SSP may not be payable until the fourth week, meaning the employee will have to wait before becoming eligible for SSP," she said.

In your mum's case, she had been working there for two years. While I don't know her earnings, considering £125 a week is less than full-time minimum wage, I would assume she is earning more than that.

You said she had a doctor's note, but I'm not sure when she gave that to her employer. Read more:The £20 rule for parking app keying errorsWhy millions of Britons are off work long-term sickPension contribution trick most people don't know Are there any exceptions? Even if all the above requirements are met, you still won't get SSP if: You have already received the maximum amount of SSP.You are getting statutory maternity pay.You have been taken into custody or are on strike.You are working outside the EU and you're not liable for national insurance contributions.You received employment support allowance within 12 weeks of starting or returning to work.What steps can your mum take next? If you think you have been underpaid SSP, there are some steps you can take.

First, have a conversation with your employer about the issue, and ask them to check if they have made a mistake - this is usually the quickest way to resolve the matter, Huttley says. It's worth checking the sick pay date.

Make sure the sick note covered the period from when you were unable to work and that your employer is using the correct weeks for SSP payments. "If the issue cannot be resolved internally, you can ask HMRC's statutory payment dispute team for a determination.

In the future, enforcement of SSP will transfer to the Fair Work Agency which is being established under the Employment Rights Act 2025," Huttley said. If the company doesn't resolve the problem, you can contact HMRC for further advice on SSP payments - see how to do that here.

Things are changing... While all of the requirements we have set out above are correct now, they are changing from 6 April.

From then, the £125 earnings requirement will be removed, and eligible people will be owed SSP from the first day of their sick leave. SSP will also increase to £123.25 or 80% of the employee's weekly earnings, whichever is lower..