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Introduction to this document

Response to antenatal appointment companion request

Eligible employees have the statutory right to take time off work to accompany a pregnant woman to up to two antenatal appointments. Where an employee has submitted a request for time off, use our letter to respond to them.

Statutory right

An employee who is in a qualifying relationship with a pregnant woman or their expected child is entitled to take unpaid time off work to accompany that woman to antenatal appointments made on the advice of a registered medical practitioner, registered midwife or registered nurse. It’s a day one right, but it’s limited to attendance at no more than two appointments (although you can grant more time off, or pay for any time off taken, at your discretion). The maximum time off during working hours for each appointment has been set at six and a half hours. In practice, most appointments should be much less than that, e.g. no more than half a day, as it only needs to cover travel time, any waiting time at the appointment and the duration of the appointment itself.

Qualifying relationship

Being in a “qualifying relationship” with the pregnant woman or their expected child means being one of the following: (1) the husband or civil partner of the pregnant woman; (2) a person of a different or the same sex who lives with the woman in an enduring family relationship (but not a relative, i.e. not the woman’s parent, grandparent, sister, brother, aunt or uncle); (3) the father of the expected child; or (4) the intended parent in a surrogacy arrangement, i.e. a potential applicant for a parental order in respect of the expected child.

Declaration

You can ask the employee to sign a declaration to confirm their eligibility and request time off – see our Antenatal Appointment Eligibility Declaration. However, you can’t ask for evidence of either the pregnancy or the antenatal appointment itself, as those documents are the property of the pregnant woman.

Response letter

Our Response to Antenatal Appointment Companion Request enables you to reply to the employee, granting the unpaid time off, following their request and confirmation of eligibility. As well as setting out the employee’s entitlement to time off, our letter emphasises that they should only take the time off that they need to attend the appointment, and so they will be required to attend work for the remainder of their working day on the date of the appointment. It also has optional paragraphs to cover whether this is the first or second appointment. Finally, our letter reminds the employee that if they want further time off to accompany a pregnant woman to antenatal appointments that go beyond their statutory entitlement, they can apply to take paid annual leave.