Carer’s leave in the UK: A simple guide

In 2023 we saw the introduction of the Carer’s Leave Act, enshrining the rights of and provisions for these most precious and, sadly, often under-appreciated of people.

As of 2021, there are at least 5 million unpaid carers in the UK – that’s a staggering 9% of the population. And that’s only those carers reported on the Census; the true figure could be double that. With both general and mental health declining and NHS services struggling to keep up, this number is not likely to get much smaller any time soon.

Why does this matter for business? If you’re an employer or manager in even a small organisation, it’s highly likely that you have a carer working for you. In fact, Carers UK found that one in seven people in the workplace are juggling work and care. Carers are everywhere, so your company needs a carer’s leave policy and should understand what you can do to support the carers in your workforce.

If you’re an employee with caregiving responsibilities, this article will give you clarity on your rights and your employer’s obligations under the new legislation and explain how to request carer’s leave.

Table of Contents

• The Carer’s Leave Act
• Impact for employees
• Impact on employers
• Absenteeism and turnover
• Gender equality
• Looking to the future
• Key takeaways

The Carer’s Leave Act

The Act came into force in April 2024, and requires all employers in the UK to provide up to a week’s unpaid leave per year to any employee who provides care to a ‘dependent’ with a ‘long-term care need’.

The idea is that the week is spent either directly providing care, or arranging ongoing care for that person.

Here, a dependent is classed as either:

• A spouse/civil partner, child, or parent of the employee
• Someone who lives in the employee’s household (excluding lodgers/tenants etc)
• Someone who ‘reasonably relies’ on the employee to provide/arrange care
  

A ‘long-term care need’ is defined by the Act as:

• A Disability under the Equality Act 2010 (ie mental/physical impairment having a significant, long-term impact on their day-to-day activities)
• A physical or mental injury likely to require care for over 3 months
• Old age-related care needs

The ‘week’ here refers to the typical working week of that member of staff, and is available to both full- and part-time employees (not contractors). If their usual working week is five days, then the week’s leave would be five days. If they work part-time, it might be two or three days. The days do not have to be taken consecutively, or as full days – eg someone could take 10 half days instead.

Employees are not required to provide any evidence that they are eligible to take carer’s leave. Employers cannot deny requests, but can postpone the leave if it would disrupt business operations. To do this, they must give written notice explaining the reason and offering new dates, within 7 days of the request. The suggested dates must be within a month of the originally requested dates. Failure to follow these rules could result in a tribunal.

Impact for employees

The Carers Leave Act is an important piece of legislation with wide-ranging positive impact for employers and employees alike.

For the first time, unpaid carers have the right to specific leave. This means they no longer have to call in sick or use up annual leave – which, remember, is for rest and relaxation, not unpaid work – so that they can care for loved ones. The main other positive to come out of the Act is to bring into the light something that many were silently and invisibly struggling with. Caring, and how it can fit around work, is something that we need to be talking about if we’re going to get it right. Stigma serves no one.

Impact on employers

As we saw in the intro, caring, like work, is a fact of life for many, and isn’t going to go away. We have an ageing population in the UK, and frankly not a healthy one, and so can expect the proportion of the workforce who are also providing care to increase. To put it into context, it is predicted that 1 in 6 employees will be caring for an elderly relative by 2040. Employers need to be prepared for this.

On both the employer and employee sides, there needs to be clarity on what support people are entitled to and how to get it. This means you need a carer’s leave policy that can be easily accessed and understood – eg via an employee handbook.

The Act doesn’t specify how requests should be submitted, only that fair notice be given – either 3 days (the minimum) or twice the number of days they’re taking as leave (eg for 3 days’ leave, they need to give 6 days’ notice). Your leave policy should specify whether requests need to be written or verbal.

Aside from these admin-related tasks, the impact on employers will be mostly positive.

Absenteeism and turnover

Caring is not an easy task. It is physically and emotionally taxing, and so employers could rightly be concerned about the impact it will have on their staff at work. A study found that 84% of employees with an elderly dependent felt more stressed at work, and 33% of employees miss at least 6 days of work each year because they’ve had to provide care. The ONS has found that, of those with caring responsibilities, 80% see that trying to juggle work and care has affected their performance – but only 20% of organisations knew about this.

It is clear, then, that the needs of carers are being widely ignored. Left unchecked, this will lead to ill health and absence – bad news for businesses.

If this issue is ignored or neglected, we can expect to see more part-time work, people leaving the workforce, increased stress leave, and generally higher absenteeism as the juggle takes its toll on people’s mental and physical health and, in turn, productivity.