Antenatal appointment eligibility declaration

Use our declaration form to require an employee to formally declare that they qualify for the statutory right to time off to accompany a pregnant woman to an antenatal appointment and wish to take time off. The maximum number of appointments they can attend is two.

Right to accompany

Employees who have a qualifying relationship with a pregnant woman or her expected child are entitled to take unpaid time off during working hours to accompany the woman to up to a maximum of two antenatal appointments which are made on the advice of a registered medical practitioner, registered midwife or registered nurse. Whilst up to 6.5 hours per appointment can be taken, that is a maximum time and, in the majority of cases, the time taken off will be much less than that. This is because the employee can only take the time off that they actually need to attend the appointment. This includes any time needed to travel to and from the appointment, any waiting time at the appointment and the duration of the appointment itself. 

Declaration form

You are legally entitled under the provisions to ask employees to sign a declaration stating that:

• they have a qualifying relationship with the pregnant woman or her expected child
• they are taking the time off to accompany them to an antenatal appointment
• the appointment has been made on the advice of a registered medical practitioner, registered midwife or registered nurse; and
• the date and time of the appointment.

Our Antenatal Appointment Eligibility Declaration asks the employee to confirm all of the above and to set out the precise nature of their qualifying relationship with the pregnant woman. The qualifying relationship could be because they are:

• the husband or civil partner of the pregnant woman
• living with the pregnant woman in an enduring family relationship, but not her relative, i.e. not the pregnant woman’s parent, grandparent; sister; brother; aunt or uncle
• the father of the expected child
• the intended parent in a surrogacy arrangement; for example, a potential applicant for a parental order in respect of the expected child.

Evidence

No evidence of either the pregnancy or the appointment needs to be provided by the employee - their signed declaration is sufficient. You also don’t have to require the employee to complete and sign a declaration if you don’t want to. However, where you do ask for this and the employee then fails to complete and sign it, they will forfeit their right to time off.