HMRC have issued further policy information on the new Statutory Neonatal Care Pay and Leave (SNCP&L, SNCL and SNCP).
These new rights apply from 6th April 2025 where a baby needs neonatal care within the 28 days from their birth. The leave and pay entitlements are in addition to any other statutory parental leave and pay entitlements.
What is Neonatal Care?
When child receives any of the following types of care, they are considered to have been in neonatal care:
- (a) medical care in a hospital;
- (b) Palliative or end-of-life care
- (c) Outreach care, which meets the following conditions:
- (i) the care is provided under the direction of a consultant doctor; and
- (ii) the care includes ongoing monitoring by, and visits to the child from, healthcare professionals arranged by the hospital.
Statutory Neonatal Care Leave (SNCL)
SNCL is a day one employment right for those parents who meet relevant qualification requirements. For being recognised as a parent with caring responsibility.
It comprises of one week for every week the child spends in neonatal
care up to a maximum of 12 weeks and is applied in Tier 1 (in care) and Tier 2 (after leaving care).
Who qualifies for pay?
The qualification for neonatal pay is the same as the criteria for SNCL but plus a 28 week continuity of service test and minimum earnings test in relation to the £123 Lower Earning Limit (which is subject to change each April).
It’s available where a child entered neonatal care within 28 days following the birth and completes a stay of seven or more continuous days.
Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (SNCP)
Tier 1 (Child is in neonatal care)
Tier One leave applies to parents who take their leave while their child is in neonatal care or in the first week following their discharge.
It is to allow parents to leave work at short notice to be with their child in neonatal care,
It can be taken flexibly in an unlimited number of whole week blocks.
If a week of SNCL overlaps with prior pre-booked parental leave such as Shared Parental Leave (ShPL/ShPP) , the parent can pause their leave (SNCL/SNCP) to accommodate the other pre-booked leave and then tag the remaining days of SNCL/SNCP at the end of the interrupting leave.
This flexibility is to ensure that the parent can take their leave in Tier One when they need it.
Tier 2 (after neonatal care)
Tier Two leave is any leave taken (out of the remaining entitlement) after the Tier One period leave and until the end of the 68-week period following the child’s actual birth.
Any Tier Two leave will be taken in a single continuous block as this leave is taken when the child is out of neonatal care and can be planned.
Overall the statutory entitlement maximum is 12 weeks overall for both tier one and two.
Special circumstances
– Child unfortunately dies
If a child dies following an eligible stay in neonatal care, the parent would be allowed to take any accrued SNCL&P within 68 weeks of the child’s birth, in a similar way to parents whose child did not die.
– Adoption disrupted
Where an adoption is disrupted following the prospective adoptive parents caring for the child in neonatal care, parents would be allowed to take any accrued SNCL&P within 68 weeks of the child’s birth.
– Multiple births / multiple admissions
The maximum entitlement to 12 weeks of SNCL&P will not increase if a parent has multiple births. Eligibility SNCL&P will only be triggered if any (or all) of the babies each spend seven or more continuous days
in care. If there is an overlap in admission between two or more of the babies, any overlap of seven or more days will trigger an entitlement which will be attributed to one of the children and not to all of them separately.
Real Time Information (RTI) changes
To support SNCP there will be one new data item in the Full Payment Submission (FPS) to report the SNCP paid.
And two new data items (reclaim and compensation values) on the Employer Payment Summary (EPS), similar to those for other statutory payments.
Next steps
There are a number of outstanding questions that require answers and details which need to be provided. The initial information is being shared with the software developer community, however, there will be anomalies and and circumstances which need to be clarified, especially as neonatal care often applies to early birth (born prior to the MatB1 form date).
The RTI specifications are due to be issued by the end of September 2024 with testing of RTI messaging available shortly after.
PAYadvice.UK 19/8/2024
One thought on “Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (SNCP) and Leave – April 2025”