The regulations are currently awaiting parliamentary approval. However it is expected that eligible employees will gain a statutory right to neonatal care leave and pay in respect of children born on or after 6 April 2025. This was originally announced in March 2020 and is a long-awaited change.
The Government estimates that around 60,000 parents will be eligible for the new entitlements, and around 34,000 parents will take them up each year.
The new entitlement
Neonatal care leave will allow eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of leave (in addition to existing maternity, paternity, adoption, or shared parental leave) if their baby requires neonatal care. The entitlement applies where:
- The baby receives neonatal care within 28 days of birth.
- The neonatal care lasts seven full days or longer.
The definition of neonatal care is wider than may have been expected, as it also extends to outpatient treatment.
In Parliament, Mr Madders MP explained that outpatient care is included in the statutory definition of neonatal care to capture the many different ways in which children receive care.
The intention is to prevent a “postcode lottery” where parents of children who receive the same treatment would qualify for the new entitlements in one region because their treatment is received in a hospital, but would not in another because they receive their treatment at home.
The employee is entitled to take up to 1 week of leave for each qualifying week their child spends in neonatal care.
This leave will be a day-one right, meaning employees can access it from the start of their employment (however, there is a continuous service requirement to be eligible for statutory neonatal care pay).
In adoption cases, entitlement to NCL only arises in respect of a qualifying period after the date of placement (or, in overseas adoption cases, after the date the child enters Great Britain).
Statutory neonatal care pay (subject to eligibility criteria) will be available and similar in structure to the other family-related pay schemes.
It is likely that fathers or the mother’s partner will see the benefit of this first as they are more likely to take the leave whilst the baby remains in neonatal care or shortly after whilst the mother is likely to add it on to the end of her maternity leave so it does not terminate that leave.
Any neonatal care leave must be taken within 68 weeks after the child’s birth.
There are slightly different rules for how the leave can be taken depending on whether it is taken whilst the child is receiving neonatal care or following a qualifying period of neonatal care. There are also differences in the notice requirements.
My View
I have followed this change for some time following my daughter’s premature birth in February 2020.
My daughter was in the neonatal unit for 13 weeks following her birth. The first three months of my maternity leave consisted of visiting her in hospital.
My husband was fortunate in that he was granted compassionate leave following his 2 weeks paternity leave, as our daughter remained in intensive care.
He was, however, required to return to work after several weeks and significantly before our daughter was discharged from hospital.
He did not have the option of taking any time off other than annual leave when she was discharged and finally came home.
The right for him to take this additional neonatal care leave to prevent him having to return to work for much longer would have made a huge difference to us and I’m sure it will make a huge difference to a significant number of families in the future.
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