The Department for Business & Trade has published an employers’ technical guide to neonatal care leave and pay. Published on 22 August, this guide aims to support employers in implementing the new statutory entitlement for employees, which applies to eligible parents of babies born on or after 6 April 2025.
The entitlement only applies to employees in England, Scotland and Wales.
What is neonatal care leave and pay?
Neonatal care refers to care for newborn babies starting in the first 28 days after birth. It can cover hospital care, medical care after leaving hospital, or palliative or end of life care. For parents to be eligible for the entitlement, the baby must enter neonatal care within 28 days of birth and spend at least 7 consecutive days in neonatal care.
Eligible employees can take up to 12 weeks’ neonatal care leave, accrued as one week of leave for every 7 full and consecutive days the baby spends in neonatal care. All leave must be taken within 68 weeks of the baby’s date of birth.
Neonatal care leave is a ‘day one’ right, meaning that employees are entitled to it from the first day of their employment. However, to qualify for statutory neonatal care pay an employee must be employed for a minimum of 26 weeks prior to the time off being requested and must earn on average at least the Lower Earnings Limit in force at the time (set in April each year and currently £215 per week).
What does the technical guide include?
The technical guide has been provided in addition to the existing suite of guidance that the government had already issued on neonatal care leave and pay and following ACAS publishing its own guide on 2 April 2025.
As with all types of family friendly leave, the provisions around eligibility, notification requirements, calculating pay and how leave can be taken are complex.
This technical guide is therefore intended to support employers in navigating how neonatal leave and pay should be implemented and to cover some of these more complex considerations.
Employers can use the guide to determine employees’ eligibility and for guidance on how best to support employees through what is understandably a difficult time, including signposting other sources of support available.
The guidance covers the following areas:
- What neonatal care leave and pay is
- Eligibility criteria
- Information an employee must provide to an employer
- How to calculate the accrual of leave and pay
- When the leave can be taken
- How the leave interacts with other types of statutory leave and pay (such as maternity leave or bereavement leave)
- How to calculate pay – including how to calculate the “relevant week” and “average earnings”
- Information that an employer must provide to HMRC
- Support for employees
Some of the more challenging areas covered by the guide include when neonatal care is being received at home or is transferred between facilities, readmission to neonatal care and multiple births.
The guide also includes a number of worked examples to assist employers in understanding the requirements.
How Bates Wells can help
With the new statutory entitlement, it is key that employers make sure they are complying with the new requirements. This includes reviewing and updating policies, providing appropriate information to employees and third parties such as HMRC, and establishing appropriate internal processes to implement the changes clearly and effectively.
For further advice and support on the new statutory rights please contact Paul Jennings and Bronya Greatrex.
The material in this article is provided for guidance and general information only and is not intended to constitute legal or other professional advice upon which you should rely. In particular, the information should not be used as a substitute for a full and proper consultation with a suitably qualified professional. Please do contact the Bates Wells team if you require further information.