The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 – effective from April 2025

The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 – effective from April 2025

In April 2025, the new Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 will finally become effective.

The policy, which is designed to support employees who have parental or a personal relationship with a baby needing neonatal care, will mean those eligible can take at least one week and up to 12 weeks of paid leave. This will be in addition to other entitlements such as paternity, maternity and shared parental leave.

Under the Act, the time off must be taken in full weeks, in line with other statutory parental leave, from the time the baby has been in neonatal care for seven continuous days up to a maximum of 12 weeks.

Entitlements and eligibility

This day-one right, which will apply to each parent individually (so up to a maximum of 12 weeks per parent), will be confirmed where a baby has remained in neonatal care within 28 days after birth and has been there for seven or more consecutive days. The parent must also be an employee, have responsibility for the upbringing of – or main caring responsibilities for – the child in neonatal care, have given correct notice to their employer  and have a child meeting the relevant requirements regarding neonatal care.

Employers will, in due course, be expected to update employee contracts (as this is a new paid entitlement) as well as introduce a policy setting out the procedural steps ahead of the go-live date in April next year.  However, the procedural steps, such as how much notice must be given, what happens for multiple births (e.g. twins, triplets etc) have yet to be made clear and further instruction is awaited to the finer details.

Right to suffer no detriment

Once the right is in force, the new law will apply to all employers and employees will be protected from being subjected to a detriment because they took or sought to take neonatal care leave. Employees (regardless of their length of service) will also have additional protections from being unfairly dismissed if the reason for the dismissal is connected with the fact that they took or sought to take neonatal care leave. A dismissal of this nature will fall within the ‘automatically unfair dismissal’ category.