# A dental nurse asks for unpaid parental leave: 18 weeks a child, 4 weeks a year, 21 days' notice and when the practice can delay it, worked > Unpaid parental leave for a dental nurse: 18 weeks a child, 4 a year, 21 days' notice and a 7-day reply to delay it, worked with dates. - Page to cite: https://aeolookup.com/clinics/dental-nurse-unpaid-parental-leave-18-weeks-per-child-4-weeks-a-year-21-days-notice-worked/ - Publisher: AEO Lookup (https://aeolookup.com/) - Section: Dental, physio and aesthetics clinics, Running the practice - Published 29 October 2026 - Key fact: For a nurse on 37.5 hours, 4 weeks is 150 hours and 18 weeks is 675 hours; at 4 weeks a year one child takes at least 5 leave years (4+4+4+4+2) and two children 36 weeks (1,350 hours) at least 9; a request made on Monday 2 November 2026 can start on Monday 23 November at the earliest, needs a written reply by Monday 9 November if the practice wants to delay, and any delayed start must fall by 23 May 2027 (we calculated the dates and hours for one request). - Sources: GOV.UK, Unpaid parental leave: overview, Entitlement, Eligibility, Notice period and Delaying leave (gov.uk/parental-leave and its sub-pages), all read 29 October 2026. A dental nurse tells the practice manager she wants four weeks off in November to be with her child. It is not holiday, it is not sick leave and nobody is getting paid by the practice. We read the GOV.UK unpaid parental leave pages on 29 October 2026 and worked one request through, with dates and hours. ## What the pages say - **Entitlement:** "You're entitled to 18 weeks' leave for each child and adopted child, up to their 18th birthday." - **Yearly limit:** each parent can take up to 4 weeks per child in a year, unless the employer agrees otherwise. - **Whole weeks:** leave is taken in whole weeks, such as 1 week or 2 weeks, not single days, unless the employer agrees or the child is disabled. It does not all have to be taken at once. - **Who can ask:** the employee is named on the birth or adoption certificate, or has or expects to have parental responsibility; is not self-employed or a "worker" such as an agency worker or contractor; does not hold the child only through a placement with no court-granted parental responsibility; and the child is under 18. The pages we read mention no length-of-service test. - **Proof:** the practice can ask for reasonable proof, such as a birth certificate, but not each time leave is requested. - **Notice:** "Employees must give 21 days' notice before their intended start date", confirming the start and end dates. It need not be in writing unless the employer asks. - **Delay:** only for a "significant reason", such as serious disruption to the business. The employer must write explaining why "within 7 days of the original request", the new start must fall within 6 months of the requested start, the amount of leave cannot be changed, and leave taken by a father or partner immediately after the birth or adoption cannot be delayed. - **Pay:** the title says unpaid. Holidays and the right to return to the job are protected during the leave. ## Check one: the hours A nurse on 37.5 hours a week: | Leave | Weeks | Hours (weeks x 37.5) | |---|---|---| | One year's limit for one child | 4 | 150 | | Whole entitlement, one child | 18 | 675 | | Whole entitlement, two children | 36 | 1,350 | These are hours of absence to cover, not hours of pay. The practice pays nothing for them under the rule. ## Check two: how many years 18 weeks takes At 4 weeks a year per child, 18 weeks needs at least 5 years: 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 2 = 18. For two children it is 36 weeks, and 36 / 4 = 9 years at the least. Nothing forces her to take it that fast, so the practice should expect requests to recur and keep a running total of weeks taken for each child. Do not treat the 4 weeks as a lifetime figure: it is a yearly limit inside an 18-week total. ## Check three: the dates Say the request arrives on Monday 2 November 2026. | Step | Calculation | Date | |---|---|---| | Request received | | Mon 2 Nov 2026 | | Earliest start with 21 days' notice | 2 Nov + 21 days | Mon 23 Nov 2026 | | Written reply due if the practice wants to delay | 2 Nov + 7 days | Mon 9 Nov 2026 | | Latest delayed start (6 months after 23 Nov) | 23 Nov 2026 + 6 months | Sun 23 May 2027 | Counted backwards, a start on 23 November needed the request by 2 November, and a start on Monday 7 December needed it by 16 November. If she asks for 4 weeks from 23 November, she is off until the end of Friday 18 December, 4 whole weeks, and back on Monday 21 December. Because the leave is taken in whole weeks, the practice cannot offer her 3 weeks and 2 days instead: the amount cannot be changed. The 23 May 2027 date falls on a Sunday, so the practical last working start is Friday 21 May. That is our reading of "within 6 months", and we did not read how the page treats a date that falls at a weekend. ## When a delay is realistic "Serious disruption" is a high bar for a practice with several nurses. Two nurses off in the same fortnight, with one dentist's list unstaffed, is the kind of case to weigh, and it needs a written reason inside the 7 days. If the 9 November reply deadline passes with nothing sent, we did not read what follows, so do not assume the practice can still delay. A short call to an adviser is cheaper than a refused leave day later. ## What we did not read We did not read how part-time nurses' weeks are counted, the rules on an employee who has changed employer (whether weeks already taken carry across), or what the page means by "worker" beyond the examples it gives. We did not read Acas guidance or the Employment Rights Act. The dates use an invented request to show the sums. ## Where it sits with the other leave This is separate from [a nurse's holiday entitlement](https://aeolookup.com/clinics/dental-nurse-receptionist-holiday-entitlement-2026-bank-holidays-part-time-days-left/), from [the unpaid carer's leave week](https://aeolookup.com/clinics/dental-nurse-asks-for-unpaid-carers-leave-one-week-a-year-notice-cannot-refuse-worked/) and from [bereavement leave after a child dies](https://aeolookup.com/clinics/dental-nurse-child-dies-parental-bereavement-leave-two-weeks-day-one-pay-194-32-56-weeks-worked/). A nurse who wants shorter days instead of weeks off is making [a flexible working request](https://aeolookup.com/clinics/dental-nurse-asks-to-work-four-days-flexible-working-request-two-months-decision-worked/). Overlyft ![](https://aeolookup.com/img/d/ours-badge.png) builds AI staff who join the team, and one of them can do this specific task: keep each nurse's running total of parental leave weeks, work out the notice and reply dates for every request and flag a clash with other leave, for the practice manager to review and approve. This is general information, not advice. Check the GOV.UK pages and take advice before you act. --- ![](https://aeolookup.com/img/d/owner-line.png) Overlyft: https://overlyft.com/ General information for UK small firms, not legal, tax or financial advice.