Parents of Premature Babies To Be Given 12 Weeks Extra Paid Leave

Plans have been set out in this weeks budget to give neonatal allowance on top of maternity and paternity pay.

The parents of babies that are born premature will receive extra paid leave on top of the existing allowance, this is expected to be announced in this weeks budget.

In addition to the standard maternity and paternity allowance, the new policy that is to be introduced will see that parents of sick children are given statutory paid leave of approximately £160 a week for up to 12 weeks while the child is in neonatal care. The new policy will be available to parents with a newborn child that is in care for longer than a week.

At present the parents of children born prematurely are not entitled to extra leave and its often found that they will spend most of their statutory maternity/paternity leave by their child’s side in hospital. It is estimated that there are around 40,000 children that spend longer than a week in neonatal care.

The exchequer secretary to the Treasury, Kemi Badenoch said that the goverment would incur almost of of the cost of the new policy.

Kemi Badenoch said “creating this groundbreaking new entitlement is the right thing to do” “We also believe it is value for money, because a more supportive workplace environment for employees will be good for business and for the UK economy”

The extra leave policy would fulfil the governments manifesto pledge to introduce a new neonatal care plan.

The found of the charity “The Smallest Things” Catriona Ogilvy who have actively campaigned for the paid neonatal leave, was pleased with the announcement. She said ” As parent who have spent the first days, weeks or even months of our childrens lives in a neonatal intensive care unit, we are over the moon that the worry of work and pay will be eased for the incubator-watchers who follow in our footesteps”

“This will make a large difference to many families at the toughest times in their lives when the health of their babies needs to be their top priority”

Kemi Badenoch has said the the new policy will be in Wednesdays budget and will the first one delivered by Rishi Sunak who has now replaced Sajid Javid as the chancellor of the exchequer.