Can my wife do self employed work without losing maternity leave rights from main employer?

Wkmg

My wife is currently on maternity leave from her job with the NHS. She does some self employed work as well through our limited company. The company she contracts to on a self employed basis has asked if she’ll come back before the end of her maternity leave. It’s only half a day a week. My wife likes the work but wouldn’t want to stop her maternity leave early. Can you do self employed work and keep your employed maternity leave or not? She’s planning on taking 9 months leave, might extend to 12. She would consider going back to the self employed work from 6 months. 

KP20

From gov.uk

Self-employed work does not affect Statutory Maternity Pay from an employer - italicised below.

3.12 Working in your Maternity Pay Period

If you are getting SMP from one employer and, before your baby is born, you do some work for another employer, your SMP is not affected.

Your SMP will stop if after the baby is born, but before the end of the Maternity Pay Period (MPP), you work for an employer who did not employ you in the qualifying week. It is your responsibility to tell the employer paying you SMP about your new job. You must do this as soon as possible, and make sure you return any SMP payment you get that covers the week you started work and any part of the period after you resumed work.

If you do any work in a self-employed capacity during your MPP, then such work will not affect your SMP.

chrisbur

There are two points here that I feel you should look into further....
NHS have an excellent enhanced maternity pay system, if this applies then your wife may need their permission for this work to qualify for the enhanced payment ( the standard SMP would not be affected)
My limited understanding of employment through a limited company is that your wife might be classed as an employee not self employed, no problem if she was doing this work during the qualifying week but if not I would look into this as well.