NeoNatal Leave and Pay

NeoNatal Leave To Be Introduced For Parents of Premature or Sick Babies

The Neonatal Leave and Pay legislation received Royal Assent on 24 May 2023 and will take effect from 6 April 2025. The legislation enables parents to take up to 12 weeks’ paid leave to enable them to spend more time with their baby if it is receiving neonatal care in a hospital or other agreed care setting due to being born early or being sick within the first four weeks of their life.

Background

Currently, parents of a baby requiring neonatal care must use existing statutory leave entitlements to allow them to take time off work while their baby remains in hospital. For mothers, this means using up some of their 52-week maternity leave entitlement, which is triggered on the day of the birth. For fathers, this would usually mean using up their two-week paternity leave entitlement, perhaps in combination with other leave rights such as unpaid parental leave, unpaid emergency dependant leave or annual leave. In some cases, the mother may exchange up to 50 weeks of her maternity leave for shared parental leave to share with the father. Doing this would enable the father to take a longer period of time off work, but would, in turn, reduce the amount of time off work that the mother is able to take.

The Right To NeoNatal Leave and Pay

The right to leave and pay enhances existing leave and pay entitlements, such as maternity and paternity leave.

Entitlement to leave is a day one right. Employees with 26 weeks’ continuous service and whose weekly earnings are at or above the lower earnings limit will also be entitled to statutory neonatal pay during this period of leave at the current statutory rate. Payment will be equal to the statutory rate of pay for other family-related leave.

What is NeoNatal Care?

Neonatal care means:

• any medical care received in hospital;
• medical care received elsewhere following discharge from hospital. The care must be under the direction of a conusultant and includes ongoing monitoring and visits to the child be healthcare professionals; or
• palliative or end of life care.

The neonatal care must start within 28 days of the birth of the child. The care must continue without interruption for a period of at least seven days, starting with the day after the day on which care starts.

Eligibility To NeoNatal Leave

NeoNatal Leave is a day one right and applies to employees with parental responsibility for a baby receiving, or has received, neonatal care.

The child must be born on or after 6 April 2025

When the child is born the employee must be the:

• child’s parent;
• child’s intended parents through a surrogacy arrangement;
• partner of the child’s mother (who are unrelated and living with them in an enduring family relationship and have the expectation they will have responsibility for raising the child.

Where parents are adopting the child similar arrangements will apply.

How NeoNatal Leave Can Be Taken

Each parent will accrue one week of leave for each week the child is receiving uninterrupted neonatal care up to a maximum of 12 weeks of leave.

The leave accrues in the first few weeks after the child’s birth but is added to the end of the maternity or paternity leave so it enhances rather than impacts on the existing leave entitlements. The leave must be taken before the end of the 68th week after the date of the child’s birth.

A week is any period of seven days starting on the day after the neonatal care started. Meaning leave can start on any day of the week.

In order to provide flexibility there is a distinction between the time the leave is used:

• Tier 1: is when the leave is taken whilst the child is receiving neonatal up to the week post discharge from care; the leave can be taken in noncontinuous blocks of a minimum of one week at a time.
• Tier 2: leave taken at any other time up to the 68th week after the date of birth must be taken in one continuous block.

Example

A father of a child receiving neonatal care may use some neonatal leave whilst the child is in hospital receiving care. Then after the child has been discharged from hospital and is at home he may take his paternity leave followed by the remainder of the accrued neonatal leave.

Multiple Births

For parents of twins or other multiple births, neonatal leave cannot be claimed in respect of babies who are receiving care at the same time. For example, if both twins were to receive care for a period of 6 weeks, the parents would only be entitled to 6 weeks of leave. The maximum amount of leave remains 12 weeks.

Statutory NeoNatal Care Pay

The right to receive Statutory Neonatal Care Pay requires 26 weeks of service and earnings on average of at least the lower earnings limit (£125 a week for the 2025-26 tax year). This mirrors the entitlement to maternity and shared parental leave pay.

The amount of Statutory Neonatal Care Pay mirrors other family friendly pay: 90 per cent of their average weekly earnings, or the Lower Rate of SMP which is £187.18 for the 2025-26 tax year), whichever is lesser.

Notice Requirements

In line with other parental leave, employees are expected to provide notice of their intention to take neonatal leave stating:

• Their name
• The baby’s date of birth (or date of placement/entry to Great Britain if adopting)
• The start date or dates of neonatal care
• The date neonatal care ended (if applicable)
• The date on which the employee wants to take the neonatal leave
• The number of weeks of neonatal leave the notice is being given for
• That the neonatal leave is being taken to care for the baby
• Confirmation that the employee is eligible to take neonatal leave due to their relationship with the baby

The required length of notice differs depending on when the leave is taken:

• A tier 1 period of leave requires 15 days’ notice
• A tier 2 period of leave requires 28 days’ notice.

Employers and employee’s can mutually agree to waive any notice requirements.

Protection

Employees who take a period of neonatal leave will be protected by:

• a right to benefit from the existing terms and conditions of employment that would have applied but for the leave (apart from terms and conditions about remuneration);
• a right to return to work to a job of a kind to be prescribed by the regulations; and
• protection from detriment or dismissal as a result of having taken or sought to take neonatal leave. Dismissal of an employee for a reason connected with their taking NCL will be automatically unfair.

Employees who have taken 6 continuous weeks of neonatal leave also benefit from the extended redundancy protection rights (if these do not already apply via maternity, adoption or paternity leave), with the right to be offered a suitable alternative vacancy applying from the day after the employee has taken six consecutive weeks of leave and ending on the day after the child turns 18 months old.

How To Prepare

It will be important to check other related family rights policies to see whether any changes (for example provisions relating to returning to work after maternity or paternity leave) are needed.

I will update this page as these questions are answered. If you are a member of my HR Manager Service I will be in touch with an update to your employee handbook before the end of March 2025.

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