Statutory Neonatal Care Pay for an agency temp: £194.32 or 90% for up to 12 weeks, and the 7-day count and 68-week window worked on one date

A temp tells the desk their baby arrived early and is on a neonatal unit. The consultant's first job is to be kind. Payroll's job comes later: how many weeks of leave, what the pay is, and by when it has to be used. GOV.UK gives the numbers on three short pages. Whether an agency temp counts as an "employee" for this, those pages do not say, and this guide marks where that line sits.

What GOV.UK says about leave and pay

Neonatal Care Leave is "one week's leave for every 7 full and continuous days your baby is in neonatal care", up to 12 weeks. Neonatal care starts within the first 28 days after birth. The employer guide gives the pay as "£194.32 a week or 90% of their average weekly earnings, whichever is lower", with tax and National Insurance deducted, and says all the leave must be taken within 68 weeks of the baby's date of birth. The pages do not state a tax year for the rate, so check it against your payroll software before quoting it.

Weeks earned per stay

The count uses whole blocks of 7 days. A short stay earns nothing.

For 20 days: 20 divided by 7 is 2 remainder 6, so 2 weeks. The maximum is reached at 12 x 7 = 84 days.

Where the cap bites

The two numbers cross at £194.32 divided by 0.9, which is £215.91 a week. Below that the temp gets 90% of their average. Above it, the flat £194.32.

This is our arithmetic, before any rounding your software applies. For the £300 temp: 12 x £194.32 is £2,331.84, and 12 x £300.00 is £3,600.00, so the gap is £1,268.16. Most temps will not take all 12 weeks, so scale the gap by the weeks actually earned. The money reaching the bank is lower again after tax and National Insurance.

The tests, and the dates for one case

For leave, the person must be classed as an employee, whatever their length of service, and employed in England, Scotland or Wales. For pay there are further conditions:

1. continuously employed for at least 26 weeks up to the end of the "qualifying week";
2. still employed until the week before the pay is due to start;
3. average earnings of £129 a week or more before tax, over an 8-week period (8 x £129 is £1,032);
4. a baby born on or after 6 April 2025 who spends 7 or more days in a row in neonatal care.

Unless maternity, paternity or adoption pay applies, the qualifying week is the week just before the baby enters neonatal care. Take a baby born on Monday 5 October 2026 and admitted that day. I have read the qualifying week as the one ending Saturday 3 October 2026. Counting 26 whole weeks (182 days) back from the end of that Saturday, the period starts on Sunday 5 April 2026. A temp whose first day with the agency was after that date misses the pay test, though not the leave. Confirm which week your payroll treats as qualifying; I have taken the wording at face value.

The deadline for the same birth: 68 weeks is 476 days, which lands on Monday 24 January 2028. To be safe, plan for all leave to finish by Sunday 23 January 2028.

What the pages do not say

None of the three pages mentions agency workers, or how a gap between assignments affects "continuously employed". I have not read the statutory regulations, so I have not worked a case with a gap, and I have not read the how-to-claim page, so notice rules are not covered. Northern Ireland is not worked here. Where a temp may fail the pay test, payroll should say so plainly and early, and check the agency's own treatment before telling them they do not qualify. The employer guide also says an employer can reclaim payments or apply for an advance if it cannot afford them; the detail sits on a page I did not read.

What to collect, gently

• Date of birth and the date the baby entered neonatal care. Everything else is counted from them.
• First day with the agency, and any gaps since. This is the continuity evidence.
• Average weekly earnings over the 8 weeks your payroll uses. Without it the 90% figure is a guess.
• Dates of the stay so far. Each full 7 days adds a week; update it as the stay continues.

The same continuity question sits behind statutory maternity pay for agency temps and statutory paternity pay, and a bereavement call raises the same rate in statutory parental bereavement pay.

Overlyft builds AI staff who join your payroll team and, when a temp reports a baby in neonatal care, work out the qualifying week, the 26-week start date, the weeks earned so far and the 68-week deadline from the payroll record, then queue a draft reply for a person to check, soften and approve.

This is general information, not payroll or legal advice. Check GOV.UK and your payroll software before you confirm entitlement.