Neonatal Care – Expansion of UK Statutory Family Leave Entitlements

The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2003 (the “Act”) introduces meaningful changes for employees who are parents of babies needing neonatal care and will come into force on 6 April 2025. The Act is a product of years of campaigning by various advocacy groups and members of parliament and is intended to address gaps in the current legal framework that left many parents in a difficult position, having to choose between caring for their newborn and maintaining their income or job security. The Government expects the changes will benefit around 60,000 new parents.

Overview of New Legislative Requirements

Key points to be aware of:

• The Act introduces statutory neonatal care leave as a ‘Day One’ employment right for parents, in addition to other types of statutory leave that they are entitled to. From 6 April 2025, eligible employees are entitled to statutory neonatal care leave of up to 12 weeks which will be available for parents whose babies need care in a neonatal unit for 7 continuous days or more within 28 days of birth.
• Eligible employees (i.e., those who qualify as the child’s parent or otherwise have responsibility for the child’s upbringing) taking neonatal care leave who have at least 26 weeks’ continuous employment can receive statutory neonatal pay for up to a maximum of 12 weeks at a similar rate to other statutory leave payments (e.g. maternity, paternity or adoption leave).
• Eligible employees are required to provide their employer notice that they intend to take neonatal care leave and provide certain information related to the period of neonatal care leave. The requirements around when notice is provided will depend on when the leave is taken (i.e either while an employee’s child is receiving neonatal care or within 7 days of them ceasing to receive neonatal care or, alternatively, where such leave is being taken more than 7 days after the child ceases to receive neonatal care).
• The Act provides protection for employees who take neonatal care leave, including a right to return to their previous job (or similar role) once their leave ends and protection against being dismissed or discriminated against for taking such leave. Similar to employees on maternity leave, there are also additional protections available to such employees if a redundancy situation arises (either when they are on neonatal care leave or for an extended period thereafter).

Navigating The New Legislation: Key Considerations

The new Act protects parents whose children require specialist neonatal care within 28 days of birth and provides valuable support that was missing under the existing statutory leave framework. While this cut-off provides greater certainty to employers, arguably it offers little consolation for parents whose babies face lengthy hospital stays where health issues are only discovered weeks after they are born. Those parents will need to navigate their leave and pay under the existing framework and it is likely they would need similar time away from work as parents who benefit from the Act, which would result in a similar disruption to the employer’s business without adequate support being provided to those parents. As a result, and particularly with employee relations in mind, businesses may want to consider offering special dispensation to such employees (i.e. choosing to extend the eligibility period to cover children requirement specialist neonatal care within several weeks of birth).

Second, employees seeking to rely on neonatal care leave will need to comply with the appropriate notice requirements. This can be complicated to understand given that different notice periods apply depending on when the leave is taken. Given the purpose of the legislation was to provide employees support during particularly stressful times, the onus will be on employers to either explain the notice requirements clearly in their policies (or, as will likely be the case in practice, waive the statutory requirements).

Employers should be able to manage compliance with the new legislation reasonably well if they take steps to prepare ahead of 6 April 2025, particularly given the new neonatal care leave is based on other types of statutory family leave. Practical steps include:

• Reviewing existing family leave policies to ensure these comply with the new legislation and to consider if employers are prepared to enhance the statutory position to align with any of their existing leave policies – for example, offering employees’ neonatal pay by reference to their usual pay rather than just the statutory rate.
• Ensuring HR teams and managers are adequately trained on (or otherwise aware of) the new neonatal care leave legislation and that the new entitlements are clearly communicated to employees.
• Ensuring payroll and administrative process are updated to accommodate neonatal pay for eligible employees.
• For employers who are anticipating changes to their workforce, including redundancies, care should be taken to ensure that employees protected by the new legislation are offered alternative employment where there is a suitable vacancy.
• Smaller businesses may want to consider sourcing additional administrative support or otherwise outsourcing their HR function to ensure compliance with the new Act.

Please reach out to your Goodwin contact should you want to discuss any of the matters raised in this briefing.

We would like to thank Matthew Poon for his assistance with this alert.

 

This informational piece, which may be considered advertising under the ethical rules of certain jurisdictions, is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute the rendering of legal advice or other professional advice by Goodwin or its lawyers. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.