There isn’t a lot that is certain about employment law in 2025, says HR expert Liz Willet. What is looming, however, is the Employment Rights Bill which GP practices should start preparing for now
Huge changes are coming down the line for employers over the next 24 months or so. However, some practices still remain unaware of updates that came into effect in 2024 too.
Let’s take a look.
Neonatal Care Leave and Pay
Employees have a ‘day one’ right to neonatal care leave from 6 April this year. This will entitle parents to take an additional 12 weeks of leave if their baby requires a week or more neonatal care in hospital (or other healthcare setting). The newborn needs to have been admitted to neonatal care within the first 28 days after birth.
The leave entitlement is in addition to their normal rights to parental leave. So, for example a father is entitled to two weeks’ paternity leave. If his baby is born prematurely and requires neonatal care, he will be entitled to an additional 12 weeks’ leave. Similarly applicable to a mother, she will be entitled to an additional 12 weeks of statutory leave on top of her maternity entitlement.
Employees will also be entitled to 12 weeks’ neonatal care pay if they qualify, similar to the requirements for maternity pay.
Employers should consider that this is a particularly stressful and worrying time for new parents and will want to deal with such situations with compassion, actively informing them of their new rights, if the situation occurs. Gov.uk will be updated in April with the guidance regarding the new right to Neonatal Care leave and pay.
Employment Rights Bill
The change in Government last year saw the introduction of the Employment Rights Bill– probably one of the biggest changes in direction to employment law in a generation. It will shift the balance of law in favour of the employee and many people in business are very worried about how it might affect their ability to react to change and address problems they may be facing with certain employees.
The Bill is still being worked through in Parliament but it proposes significant new rights for employees that will be enacted in 2026 and beyond. Some of the major anticipated changes include:
- Employees to have unfair dismissal rights to from day one of employment. Currently, these kick in only after two years. It’s not yet clear whether redundancy will become a day one right.
- Unpaid leave for parental, bereavement and paternity leave to become a day one right.
- Statutory sick pay will be available from day one of sickness absence (currently it’s not payable for the first three ‘qualifying’ days).
- Qualifying workers on zero-hours contracts to be given guaranteed hours.
- Strengthened protection against dismissal for employees on maternity leave.
- A ban on the practice of ‘fire and rehire’, which allows employers to introduce contractual changes by dismissing them then rehiring them on different terms. There will be some exceptions to the ban. However, the change will make the consultation of a contract change essential to the legality of change and the potential employer options following a failure to agree very limited.
- Increased requirements for employers to be fair and reasonable in their response to flexible working requests. An automatic right to request compressed hours might also be a possibility.
- Greater rights for trade unions to access workplaces and to facilitate collective bargaining, as well as greater protection for employees taking industrial action.
- Employers to be required to inform employees of their right to join a trade union.
- Establishment of a Fair Work Agency to enforce employment rights.
The details of these changes will become apparent in the next 18 months so it is important to be aware of them and the fact they will significantly affect the power dynamic in the employee-employer relationship. Currently the law is tipped slightly in favour of the employer – these changes will tip the balance the other way.
Practically, there will be many policies that will require updating. For example, contracts of employment will need to be revised and the way your practice manages employee probation will need to be refined and managed robustly. Please work with your HR support service to ensure you are prepared and that these changes don’t take you by surprise.
Meanwhile, last year was quite eventful in terms of employment law. Although, this has been covered before some changes that came into effect in 2024 year deserve a refresh. From my experience, many of the updates are still passing GP practices by.
Holiday pay: Holiday pay for irregular hours can be paid as ‘rolled-up’ holiday pay. It has been a requirement for some years that employers are required to pay holiday pay on overtime payments (though some practices remain unaware of this). Prior to January last year, we had to use average pay calculations to pay this, an administrative burden that was very difficult to work with. However, the rolled-up holiday pay allows practices to make a payment based upon 12.07% of the pay for each hour worked and be compliant with the law on working time regulations and pay. Do remember, it is important that this forms a separate line on the employee’s payslip.
Carer’s leave: Employees now have the right to one week unpaid leave each year for the purpose of caring for a dependent or arranging care for a dependent who has long-term mental or physical health needs.
Flexible working Rights: Employees now have a day one right to make flexible working requests and can now make two requests in a year. The timescales for responding have reduced to two months from the date of request. An employee has no longer has to give their input on how their proposal might impact the practice. An employer may still refuse the request for permitted reasons but the expectation is that they will agree if they can. As noted above, changes are proposed as part of the Employment Rights Bill that will strengthen this requirement in future.
Pregnancy and maternity leave – extending redundancy protection: Employees on maternity leave already have the right to be offered any suitable alternative vacancy in a redundancy situation. The changes to legislation brought in from April 2024 provide for greater protection against redundancy during pregnancy and for six months after their return to work from maternity leave as well as certain other family-related leave, such as shared parental and adoption leave.
Fire and rehire: It is getting progressively more difficult to use ‘dismissal and re-engagement’ to force contractual changes to contracts. The requirement for meaningful consultation has been shored up and the Government is considering changes to further restrict this ability to impose contractual change in future under the Employment Rights Bill (see above).
Sexual harassment: If you haven’t heard about this, you really do need to pay attention to this now as this represents a huge change. There is now a positive duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. We advise, at a minimum, that practices should:
- Update bullying and harassment policies to ensure that sexual harassment changes are reflected in the policy.
- Review mandatory training modules and ensure that sexual harassment is covered.
- Monitor and enforce that all staff, partners and contractors complete this mandatory training annually.
- Train your supervisors and managers in their responsibilities to recognise and respond appropriately to sexual harassment in the workplace. Update this annually.
- Undertake sexual harassment audits/surveys of staff and use them to inform a sexual harassment risk assessment, which is reviewed and updated at least annually.
The stakes are high on this. Tribunals can uplift awards against employers (that are already uncapped) by up to 25% if they feel that the employer has not taken reasonable steps to address sexual harassment in the workplace. Please get support from your HR provider to ensure that your practice is compliant.
Liz Willett Chartered MCIPD is Managing Director at Kraft HR Ltd, which works closely with practices, federations and PCNs in the Midlands and further afield
