If an employee's baby needs at least seven continuous days of neonatal care within 28 days of birth, they may qualify for SNCP.

If the employee meets all qualifying conditions, you must pay the statutory rate for SNCP. You can choose to pay further wages on top of the statutory pay. This will depend on the employee’s contract of employment. You’re under no statutory obligation to pay more than the statutory amount.

• Eligible employees accrue one week of SNCP for each seven-day period their child is in neonatal care. This rounds down to the nearest full week. For example, 19 days of neonatal care accrues two weeks.
• Employees must take their SNCP entitlement within 68 weeks of the child's date of birth.
• If the employee accrues SNCP during unplanned neonatal care, they can take this as one period of leave, or in blocks of whole weeks.
• Where your employee accrues SNCP during planned neonatal care, they must take this in one block.

Weekly payment rate

This is the lesser of either 90% of the employee's average weekly earnings (AWE), or £187.18.

HMRC will publish their detailed guidance for SNCP entitlement on Gov.UK. When this is available, we'll add a link in this article for more information.

Can't calculate the AWE

There are situations where Sage Payroll can't calculate the AWE. This can happen if you have moved to Sage Payroll from another software provider and there is not enough information available.

In these cases, you will have to calculate the AWE yourself. It is your responsibility to ensure this is correct.

Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (SNCP)

Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (SNCP) - qualifying rules

Recording Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (SNCP)

Recovering Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (SNCP)