Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (SNCP) is on its way – April 2025

The new statutory allowance (SNCP) is planned to be introduced in April 2025; this is for parents who have a child that requires neonatal care in the first 28 days following birth. Payment is made for a maximum of 12 weeks.

This statutory payment is expected to follow the same administration process as other statutory payments, such as Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay & Leave.

The payments will be paid out by employers and claimed back through payroll processes of the FPS and EPS. .

Changes to RTI set for April 2025

The HMRC software developers support team have started to issue information in readiness with changes focusing on enhancing Real Time Information (RTI) and its supporting systems to include the new statutory payment, with

• one new data item box to the Full Payment Submission (FPS) indicating the amount paid to a qualifying employer
• two new data items boxes to the Employer Payment Summary (EPS) to indicate the 92% or 100% reclaim values plus the 3% NIC reclaim if applicable

So what is it?

A baby who is born prematurely or sick will receive neonatal care in hospital or another agreed care setting – often for a prolonged period of time. This can put parents in a difficult position of having to use their existing leave entitlements to be by their baby’s side, or worse, having to return to work while their baby is still receiving hospital care.

This allows parents to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave, in addition to other leave entitlements such as maternity and paternity leave, so that they can spend more time with their baby at what is a hugely stressful time.

Once started, neonatal care leave will be available to employees from their first day in a new job and will apply to parents of babies who are admitted into hospital up to the age of 28 days, and who have a continuous stay in hospital of 7 full days or more.

Who qualifies?

In order to qualify for statutory Neonatal Care Pay (SNCP), as with other forms of parental leave, an employee will be required to be employed for a minimum of 26 weeks prior to the leave being requested and earnings on average of at least £123 a week. This mirrors the entitlement to statutory maternity pay (SMP).

This is expected to apply from April 2025. More updates to follow as additional information is made available.

PAYadvice.UK 4/6/2024