Neonatal care leave and pay: new rights for parents

Each year, over 90,000 babies are cared for in neonatal units in the UK according to statistics collated by the Neonatal Data Analysis Unit (NDAU) and referred to in this article by the charity Bliss. The babies may require care because they were born prematurely (before 37 weeks) or because, although they were born at full term, they were unwell. Many of these babies will spend weeks or even months in hospital. Amongst the many worries facing parents in this situation is the question of how to juggle work (and the consequent impact on their income) with caring for a baby who is in hospital. Depending on the length of their babies’ stay, parents may use up much of their paid family leave entitlement before their babies come home and then face difficult choices over whether to take annual leave, unpaid parental leave, or potentially even leave their job, so that they can continue to care for their babies. Similarly, many parents may return to work while their baby is still in hospital.

This issue has been the subject of a long-running campaign for change and in 2023, the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act was passed. That Act did not specify a commencement date for the new rights to leave and pay, but April 2025 was the target date for implementation. Earlier this week, the government published regulations confirming that the new rights will come into force on 6 April 2025. The new rules will apply to eligible parents of children born on or after that date.  

The Act introduces two new rights: neonatal care leave and statutory neonatal care pay. The new regulations set out how these rights will work. They provide parents with up to 12 weeks of leave from work if their baby has received neonatal care. Neonatal care for these purposes means care of a medical or palliative kind which starts within 28 days of the child’s birth and continues without interruption for a period of at least seven full days. It includes periods where care is received in a hospital, certain follow-up care under a consultant’s direction after an inpatient stay and palliative care.

Neonatal leave must be taken within 68 weeks of the child’s birth and, importantly, the right to neonatal leave is in addition to any other leave the parent may be entitled to, such as maternity, adoption or paternity leave.  

Critically, these new rights will be available to both parents. Neonatal care leave will be a day one right, but, like other similar statutory pay, the right to statutory neonatal care pay will depend on the employee meeting certain criteria, including that they have 26 weeks of continuous service by the end of the week before the child’s admission into neonatal care.

Statutory neonatal pay will be at the statutory prescribed rate (initially £187.18 from April 2025) or 90% of the employee’s average weekly earnings, whichever is lower. Employers will be able to recover it through a reduction to their national insurance contributions, in the same way as other entitlements to paid statutory leave, such as statutory maternity pay.

Parents who take neonatal leave will have the same rights as parents taking other forms of family leave, so they will be protected from detriment and dismissal. It is also worth noting that the regulations extend special redundancy protection to employees taking neonatal care leave. 

As an employer, you will want to start to think now about how you will introduce and communicate these changes and ensure they are reflected appropriately in your current family leave policies. Together with other recent changes to statutory family leave, there is now far greater flexibility for employees in terms of when and in what combination they take family leave – so it will be important to look at these policies in the round. Also, if you offer enhanced pay while on certain types of family leave, you may want to consider whether to do the same for neonatal leave.

New right to neonatal care leave and pay confirmed from 6 April

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/parents-to-receive-day-one-right-to-neonatal-care-leave-and-pay