Neonatal Care Leave – what employers need to know

Lauren Ogden, Associate

From 6 April 2025, employees will have a statutory right of up to 12 weeks leave and pay when their baby requires neonatal care. The aim of this new legislation is to allow parents to spend time with their baby who is receiving medical care without needing to use their maternity, paternity or shared parental leave.

What is neonatal care?

Neonatal care is defined as medical care which starts within 28 days of the child’s birth and lasts for 7 consecutive days.

Who is eligible?

Both parents are eligible for neonatal care leave and statutory pay from day one of their employment providing they meet the following criteria:

• At the date of birth, be the child’s parent, intended parent (under surrogacy arrangement) or the partner of the child’s mother;
• Under adoption arrangements, be either the child’s adopter or prospective adopter (or partner of the same);
• Have or expect to have responsibility for the upbringing of the child; and
• Take leave to care for the child.

How much leave can be taken and when?

Employees can take one week’s leave for each week their baby receives neonatal care without interruption up to a maximum of 12 weeks. The 12 week cap applies even if the employee has more than one child receiving neonatal care.

Neonatal care leave can be taken in addition to maternity leave, paternity leave and shared parental leave. It must be taken within 68 weeks of the baby’s birth or placement for adoption.

Notice requirements

Employees wanting to take neonatal care leave must provide their employer with the following information:

• the baby’s date of birth or placement date for adoption;
• the start and end date of care (if known);
• the date leave will begin;
• how much leave the employee will take;
• confirmation the leave is to care for the child;
• confirmation the employee meets the eligibility requirements.

When this information must be provided and whether leave can be taken consecutively depends on whether the leave is taken in a ‘tier 1’ or ‘tier 2’ period.

Tier 1

This is the period during which the child is receiving the neonatal care or during the week following the end of neonatal care. Notice periods are very flexible during this period to reflect that tier 1 periods will often arise in emergency situations.

In this period, notice only has to be given by the time the employee is due to start work on the first day of each week of leave. The notice does not need to be in writing.

The leave cannot be taken for the first week that a child is receiving care but can be taken as consecutive or non-consecutive weeks. Any remaining neonatal care leave entitlement may be taken in the tier 2 period.

Tier 2

This is the period starting one week after the end of the neonatal care. The notice requirements for this period are less flexible and the leave must be taken in one continuous block.

For one week of leave, the employee must give at least 15 days’ notice to their employer. For leave of two weeks or more, the employee must give at least 28 days’ notice to their employer.

Employers can choose to waive any of the notice requirements for both tiers of leave. Employees can withdraw their notice to take leave and are able to serve a new notice in the future for different dates.

Statutory Neonatal Care Pay

Employees who have been continuously employed for 26 weeks and earn a minimum of £125 per week will be eligible for statutory neonatal care pay which is paid at the same rate as statutory paternity or shared parental leave (£187.18 per week) or 90% of the employee’s average weekly earnings if lower.

How should employers prepare for this new type of leave?

Employers should have a clear policy in place setting out the new rights. A decision should also be made about whether to offer enhanced pay bearing in mind this leave can be taken in addition to the other types of family leave.

Employees taking neonatal care leave will also be entitled to priority status in a redundancy situation for suitable alternative vacancies as with other types of family leave. Where employers are considering making redundancies, they will also need to factor employees on neonatal care leave in their redundancy plans as well as those taking other family leave. More information about the enhanced redundancy protections can be found here.

If you require further advice or would like us to help you put together a neonatal care leave policy, please contact Lauren Ogden. We also discussed the new neonatal care leave at our March HR Breakfast seminar and you can watch the recording here.