Bliss has campaigned for and supported a new entitlement to additional paid leave from work when a baby is in neonatal care, which is available to qualifying parents whose baby is born on or after 6 April 2025 who have spent 7 full days or more on the unit.
Both parents are allowed up to 12 weeks of paid leave, in addition to other leave entitlements such as maternity and paternity leave.
Neonatal leave is available to employees from their first day in a new job and applies to both 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.
I had to attend work shifts because I couldn’t afford to keep losing money, which meant I couldn’t be with him and was often in another city to him.
I started maternity leave straight away but it meant it ended sooner than I wanted once my son was discharged. I ended up having 6 months off sick as I couldn’t face leaving him...
Alongside parents and other charities, Bliss has campaigned for many years to give parents extra leave and pay when their baby is in neonatal care. As a result, the Conservative Party included the proposal in their 2019 manifesto. However, when the Bill they had planned to use to bring it in was not introduced as promised we started campaigning again, this time to get a backbench MP to support it.
As part of that campaign, we brought together over 30 charities, unions and professional bodies to call for the new parental leave entitlement, and 3,000 campaigners emailed their MPs to ask for their support. Following our campaigning, the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Bill was introduced as a Private Member’s Bill by SNP MP Stuart McDonald in 2022. Read what we shared with MPs about our campaign (PDF).
Throughout the campaign, we worked with MPs, parents, civil servants, and employment specialists to make sure the new law will work for the families that need it. The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act achieved Royal Assent on 24 May 2023 and was implemented from 6 April 2025.
While nearly 60,000 parents will be eligible for neonatal care leave and pay every year, parents who are self-employed or who have a worker employment status will not qualify.
We continue to campaign for employment support for parents who won't benefit from the new entitlement. In October, we published a briefing on this issue to help us take action on this issue in Parliament. Read the policy briefing here.
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We have collaborated with HR specialists and employers to provide guidance on how you can provide this vital support.
You can use our letter of support to help your employer make a difference for families.
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The information on this page was last updated on 17 January 2025
