20 March 2025
From 6 April 2025, parents will have the right to up to 12 weeks’ leave and pay if their baby requires neonatal care. This is designed to assist parents whose babies are receiving medical care, without using up the parents’ entitlement to maternity, paternity or shared parental leave. This is especially important for fathers and partners who may have previously exhausted their right to leave where their baby is required to receive neonatal care for a prolonged period.
Whilst the aim is to improve employee well-being and reduce sickness absence and poor performance related to the trauma of having a child in neonatal care this type of leave attempts to fit around the family friendly rights already in existence (e.g. maternity/paternity/adoption leave) and certain aspects of this new leave may cause some confusion.
We outline the details of this new type of family friendly leave, commonly referred to as ‘NCL’, below.
What is neonatal care?
For the purposes of the legislation, neonatal care is defined as any of the following:
- Medical care received in a hospital
- Medical care received in any other place following discharge from the hospital where the child remains under consultant care and the care includes ongoing monitoring and visits from healthcare professionals
- Palliative or end of life care
For the employee to be eligible the neonatal care must take place or have begun within 28 days of birth and must continue for a period of at least 7 days. It is important to note that the 7 day period begins on the day following the day on which the neonatal care started.
Who is eligible for NCL?
Employees are eligible to take NCL from day one of their employment – there is no qualifying period that the employee must work to be entitled to this leave. However, an employee must have been employed for a period of 26 weeks to be entitled to Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (SNCP), see below.
The right to take NCL only applies to parents (or intended parents) of babies who are born on or after 6 April 2025. The employee must be:
- the baby’s parent
- the baby’s intended parent (relevant to surrogacy)
- the partner of the baby’s mother (who is unrelated to the baby’s mother and is living with them in an enduring family relationship)
- the baby’s adopter or prospective adopter (or partner of the same)
and
- have or expect to have responsibility for the upbringing of the child.
In the sad circumstances where the child dies the requirements are modified so that the employee is no longer required to be taking leave to care for the child. This preserves the entitlement to accrued NCL upon the death of the child. At this point the employee may also be entitled to parental bereavement leave and pay.
How much leave is the employee entitled to?
An employee is entitled to take one week of NCL in respect of each week that the baby receives uninterrupted neonatal care. This is capped at a maximum of 12 weeks of leave.
In the case of twins or multiple births, neonatal care leave cannot be claimed in relation to babies who are receiving treatment at the same time. For example, where twins are in neonatal care for the same 3 week period, the parents would only be entitled to 3 weeks of NCL.
When can NCL be taken?
NCL may be taken from the day after the first qualifying period (7 days starting the day after the neonatal care starts). This means the employee can only take neonatal care leave on day nine of the child receiving neonatal care.
NCL has been implemented to provide flexibility for a variety of situations, but this does result in some complexities for employers. NCL must be taken within 68 weeks of the baby’s birth, with the basic principle being that this leave would be added on to the end of the employee’s family leave entitlement (e.g. maternity or paternity leave).
The rules in relation to NCL differ depending on whether the employee is currently on family leave or whether that leave has ended. If the employee is already taking statutory family leave then the employee may add the period of NCL onto the end of that leave (for example, in the case of an employee on maternity leave, they would be unable to stop their period of maternity leave to take NCL as there is no right to maternity leave once it has been ended).
It is however, possible that a father who has given notice to take paternity leave may wish to take NCL prior to when their paternity leave is due to begin and that the NCL then extends to and beyond the date upon which paternity leave was due to start.
To deal with the different scenarios in which a parent might wish to take NCL the legislation categorises periods of NCL as ‘tier 1’ or ‘tier 2’ periods. A tier 1 period is when NCL is taken whilst a baby is receiving neonatal care, and all other leave is classed as tier 2. Tier 1 leave can be taken in non-continuous blocks of a minimum of 1 week. In contrast, NCL classified as tier 2 must be taken in a continuous block. Therefore, if a father begins NCL which is interrupted by paternity leave and neonatal care ends during that paternity leave the father is then only entitled to take tier 2 NCL in a continuous block and they must give notice prior to taking the further NCL.
Notifying the employer
As is normal when taking parental leave, the employee must notify their employer. They must provide certain information such as their name, the child’s date of birth, the date(s) that the child started to receive neonatal care and, if the child is no longer receiving that care, the date on which it ended.
The employee must also state the date on which they want the NCL to begin (the length of the required notice period will differ depending on when the leave is being taken, for example where notice is given whilst a child is receiving neonatal care the notice required is minimal and does not need to be in writing).
The employer and employee may agree to waive the notice requirements.
Rights during and upon returning from NCL
The employee’s rights during and upon returning from NCL are similar to the rights that employee’s have whilst on other types of family leave. For example, employees have the right to the same terms and conditions of employment (except for pay) whilst on NCL.
Where an employee has been on NCL for a period of 6 continuous weeks they will also benefit from enhanced redundancy protection rights which covers the period from the day after the employee has taken 6 weeks of leave and ending when the child is 18 months old.
Statutory Neonatal care pay
Where an employee meets the requirements for statutory maternity/paternity/adoption pay it is likely they will also qualify for statutory neonatal care pay (SNCP).
An employee is entitled to SNCP for every period of 7 days that the child is in receipt of neonatal care without interruption. The maximum number of weeks pay is 12.
The main difference between the entitlement to NCL and SNCP is that, to receive SNCP the employee must have been employed for a continuous period of 26 weeks ending with the relevant week, which is linked to the expected week of childbirth.
Employer takeaways
This legislation will apply from 6 April 2025 so there is now less than a month to make sure that relevant policies are in place and that staff are trained on this new type of family friendly leave. In particular, the varying notice requirements (which depend on whether the child is currently receiving neonatal care) may cause some confusion.
As NCL is paid (and the entitlement to statutory maternity pay ends at 39) employers may see employees on maternity leave choosing to end their maternity leave at 39 weeks and then move on to NCL which has the potential to provide a further 12 weeks of paid leave.
Employers considering redundancies will need to make sure to include any employees who have taken over 6 weeks of NCL when considering those entitled to priority status and to note that this protection continues until the child in relation to which the NCL was taken is 18 months old. Employers may, therefore, want to consider keeping a record of those employees who are on this type of leave (and other types of parental leave if they do not already do so).
Where an employee’s child is receiving neonatal care, this may negatively impact that employee’s mental health, performance and levels of sickness absence. Employers should be mindful of this when managing employees who have been affected by the traumatic experience of having a child in neonatal care.
We appreciate that there are now a number of different types of family friendly leave and that the ways in which these types of leave interact may cause some confusion, especially in relation to notice requirements. Our employment team are adept at drafting family friendly policies and advising in relation to rights to family friendly leave and pay.
If you would like advice or need further guidance, please contact Hannah Funnell on 020 3814 2020 or email enquiries@blasermills.co.uk.