Neonatal Care Leave: What do employers need to know?

On 6 April 2025, the long-awaited new statutory right to neonatal care leave came into effect in England, Wales and Scotland. The new right provides employees with up to 12 weeks' leave if their babies spend an extended period in neonatal care.

Background

Neonatal care leave has been a topic of legislative conversation since the UK Government's Spring 2020 Budget, when it was announced that the government would create a new statutory entitlement to neonatal care leave and pay.

In April this year, the new right came into effect under the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023, which is implemented by two sets of regulations: the Neonatal Care Leave and Miscellaneous Amendments Regulations 2025, and the Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (General) Regulations 2025.

The right applies to eligible parents of babies born on or after 6 April 2025. The entitlement does not apply retrospectively, therefore employees with babies born before this date, are not entitled to the leave or pay.

Features of neonatal care

Neonatal care refers to medical care which a baby receives within the first 28 days after birth. Neonatal care includes care received in a hospital, care given to a baby after leaving the hospital under the direction of a consultant, ongoing monitoring arranged by the hospital, and palliative or end-of-life care.

The entitlement to neonatal care leave ends 68 weeks after the baby's date of birth.

In the case of multiple births, such as twins and triplets, there is only a single entitlement meaning if an employee had twins, the employee would not have "double" the entitlement to the leave.

Who can take the leave?

For the right to leave to apply, the employee must be taking leave to care for the child, and must be either:

• the child's parent;
• the intended parent where there is a surrogacy arrangement;
• the child's adopter, prospective adopter; or
• the partner of either the adopter or prospective adopter.

When can the leave be taken?

For the right to arise, the baby must receive seven days uninterrupted neonatal care, which constitutes "a qualifying period". For each qualifying period, the parent receives one week of leave, subject to a maximum of 12 weeks. It is worth noting however that because there must be a qualifying period of seven days, the right to take leave only arises after the baby has been in neonatal care for seven days (day eight). As a result, parents are required to use other forms of leave, usually maternity or paternity leave, to cover the first seven days that the baby receives neonatal care.

There are different rules depending on when the employee takes leave. The legislation divides neonatal care leave into two tiers. The tier 1 period starts when the employee's baby starts receiving neonatal care and ends on the seventh day after the baby stops receiving care. During tier 1, eligible employees can take one week's neonatal care leave for each week that their baby receives uninterrupted neonatal care, up to a maximum of 12 weeks. This leave can be taken in non-continuous blocks; however, each block must be a minimum of one week.

Tier 2 is any other period after tier 1 has ended during which the employee is entitled to take the neonatal care leave. Tier 2 must be taken in continuous blocks.

Notice requirements

The notice requirements depend on the type of leave the employee intends to take. For tier 1 leave, an employee must notify their employer before they are due to start work on the first day of leave. The notice does not need to be in writing.

For tier 2 leave, the employee must notify their employer in writing, at least 15 days before the date they intend to take the leave. If the employee intends to take 2 weeks or more of leave, the employee must tell the employer 28 days before the leave starts.

Employers may, however, vary the specific notice requirements at their discretion.

Pay

While the right to neonatal care leave applies from the first day of employment, to be eligible for neonatal care pay, the employee must have 26 weeks of continuous service, and they must have earned at least £125 a week on average for eight weeks before taking the leave.

The pay will be the lower of £187.18 per week or 90% of the employee's average weekly earnings.

What does this mean for employers?

As with all new statutory changes, the effect on employers is yet to be fully seen, however we consider the following points to be worth noting:

• Familiarisation – employers will need to familiarise themselves with the new rules and consider implementing their own neonatal care leave policy or amending existing policies.
• Interaction with other leave – neonatal care leave does not replace existing types of family-related leave; it can be taken in addition to any maternity/paternity or other types of leave which an employee is entitled to, however, two different types of leave cannot be taken concurrently.
• Discretion – employers can choose to vary the existing requirements (notice, leave allowance and pay).

For advice on the new statutory requirements, please contact Kim Wright or Joanna Holford.

Further resources

For a detailed discussion on the practicalities of the new legislation, as well as hearing from special guest Catriona Ogilvy from charity The Smallest Things about the lived experience of having a baby in neonatal care, you may like to listen to our recent Work Couch podcast episodes:

• Neonatal care leave (Part 1): What is the new right, who is eligible, and does the law go far enough? With Joanna Holford and Catriona Ogilvy

• Neonatal care leave (Part 2): Managing the process and supporting employees, with Joanna Holford and Catriona Ogilvy

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