Neonatal Care Leave will be available to all employees who have parental or other prescribed responsibility for a child who is receiving or who has received at least 7-days neonatal care within their first 28 days of birth.
The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 will be introduced on 6 April 2025 and will bring in another type of family leave for employees with newborn babies requiring neonatal care.
Under these new regulations, eligible employees will have access to Neonatal Care Leave (NCL) from their first day of employment and subject to meeting statutory requirements, may also qualify for Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (SNCP). This will not however, be a day one entitlement.
Neonatal Care Leave will be available to all employees who have parental or other prescribed responsibility for a child who is receiving or who has received at least 7-days neonatal care within their first 28 days of birth. It will be available to those whose babies were born on or after 6 April 2025 and will be given in addition to all other family friendly rights, such as, maternity, paternity leave etc.
Eligible employees are entitled to take one weeks’ leave for each uninterrupted 7-day period the child is receiving neonatal care; subject to a maximum of 12-weeks leave. When there is more than one child from the same pregnancy, employees will accrue leave for each child unless they are receiving care at the same time.
Neonatal leave must be taken before a period of 68 weeks following the child’s date of birth or placement in cases of adoption. It can be taken during two periods known as “tier 1 period” and “tier 2 period.”
“Tier 1” commences from the date the child starts receiving neonatal care and will end with the 7th day after the child stops receiving this care. Leave taken in this period cannot be taken before the day which directly follows the first 7-day uninterrupted period of neonatal care. It can, however, be taken in non-consecutive weeks.
“Tier 2” covers any period outside of “tier 1” where the employee is entitled to Neonatal Care Leave. Leave taken during this period must be taken consecutively.
Subject to meeting the statutory requirements, employees will be entitled to a maximum of 12 weeks Statutory Neonatal Care Pay, paid at one week per every 7 uninterrupted days of care the child receives.
The weekly rate of SNCP is the lower of:
Employers can reclaim 92% of SNCP by deducting the amount to be recovered from any allowable payments due to HMRC for the tax month in which the SNCP was paid. Essentially, offsetting your tax payments by the amount you are entitled to recover.
If the business’ total Class 1 NI contributions in the previous tax year were below the annual £45,000 threshold, then you may be able to reclaim 103% of SNCP.
Employees will be required to notify their employer of their intention to take “tier 1” leave before they are due to start work on their first day of absence, unless this is not reasonably practicable. Notification of “tier 2” leave must be given at least 15 days before the employees first day of leave if they intend to take a single week, or at least 28 days in advance if they intend to take two or more weeks.
Employers are advised to update their existing family leave policy to include Neonatal Care Leave and Statutory Neonatal Care Pay provisions. Due to the sensitive nature of this leave, it is also important to ensure that management are appropriately trained to handle neonatal leave notices and to support employees throughout these periods. Furthermore, your accounts team should be informed about these changes, so they can correctly reclaim any eligible statutory payments.
The good news is that if you are a HR client of ours, then we have the policy update already in hand and you should expect to receive an updated copy of your Employee Handbook in the coming weeks. This will reflect the introduction of the new regulations and set out the legally compliant process for requesting and granting leave and pay.
If you have any questions regarding Neonatal Care Leave and/or Statutory Neonatal Care Pay, then please feel free to get in touch for expert advice today.