NHS Bereavement Leave Explained

Few workplace questions get muddled as often as "what am I actually entitled to when someone dies?" — partly because the honest answer is genuinely more layered than most people expect, and partly because a lot of informal workplace folklore ("everyone gets five days") gets repeated as fact when it's really a description of one trust's typical practice, not a legal minimum that applies everywhere. This guide separates the two: the narrow statutory rights that apply whatever your trust's policy says, and the much larger, genuinely discretionary territory that most bereavement leave in the NHS actually falls into.

If you are not sure which leave applies to a child's death, a stillbirth, a miscarriage or a baby in neonatal care, use our which leave applies decision guide.

The child bereavement baseline: Handbook Section 23 and statutory Parental Bereavement Leave

For NHS Agenda for Change staff, the death of a child is covered by a national standard in Section 23 of the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook: every bereaved parent gets a minimum of two weeks' child bereavement leave and two weeks' occupational child bereavement pay (which includes any statutory parental bereavement pay). A bereaved parent does not have to show any eligibility criteria to get the leave or pay, and there is no requirement for the child to be under 18. The leave can be taken in more than one block and requested up to 56 weeks after the death. In Scotland, the Handbook says Section 23 should be read with the current PIN policies. The statutory scheme underneath it is a genuine, fixed, UK-wide legal right — not something your trust can vary downward — and is Parental Bereavement Leave, introduced by the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018 and the Parental Bereavement Leave Regulations 2020. It applies where an employee's child dies before their 18th birthday, or where a pregnancy ends in a stillbirth after the 24th week. It's deliberately drawn broadly on who counts as a "parent" for this purpose — it can cover a natural or adoptive parent, someone who's had the child living with them and had responsibility for them for at least four weeks before the death, an intended parent through surrogacy, and a partner living with the child's parent in an enduring family relationship.

The statutory leave itself is a day-one right — you don't need any minimum length of service to take it. Whether you're also paid for it under the statutory scheme alone is a separate question: Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay additionally requires at least 26 weeks' continuous employment and average weekly earnings above the lower earnings threshold, and — where you qualify — is paid at whichever is lower of a fixed weekly statutory rate (this is reviewed and can change each April, so check the current figure with gov.uk or your trust's payroll team rather than relying on a number quoted here) or 90% of your average weekly earnings. Those 26-week and earnings tests apply to the statutory scheme on its own, but they are not conditions of the NHS Handbook's Section 23 pay, which is payable to all bereaved parents and is calculated on what you would have received had you been at work (normally based on the previous three months at work, or a locally agreed reference period).

What most NHS bereavement leave actually is: local special leave

For the death of anyone other than your own child (in the narrow sense above), there is no fixed national statutory right to paid time off. What exists instead — and what covers the overwhelming majority of real bereavement situations NHS staff face — is special leave, a category set out at a high level in the national NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook but deliberately left to individual trusts to turn into a detailed local policy. This is a genuinely important distinction: the Handbook establishes that trusts should have a compassionate/special leave provision and gives broad principles for how it should be administered, but it does not fix a single number of days that applies identically at every trust in the country.

In practice, this means:

• • The exact number of paid days varies by trust — many local policies describe a starting point of somewhere around three to five paid working days for an immediate family member (partner, parent, child, sibling), but this is local policy, not a national legal minimum, and different trusts genuinely set this differently.
• • Managers are usually given real discretion — trust policies typically ask a manager to weigh the nature of the relationship, the circumstances of the death, cultural or religious requirements (for example around funeral timing), the impact on the service, and the individual's own employment history, rather than applying a single rule mechanically.
• • More distant relationships are typically treated more flexibly, not automatically excluded — a policy built around a fixed list of 'immediate family' will usually still allow a manager to grant leave for a close relationship that doesn't fit the list neatly, case by case.
• • Paid leave can usually be followed by unpaid leave, or leave drawn from other entitlements, if more time is genuinely needed and a manager agrees.
• • Leave can't realistically be booked in advance — trust policies generally recognise this and expect staff to report the need for compassionate leave as soon as reasonably possible, with paperwork following afterwards rather than beforehand.

The practical upshot is that "how much bereavement leave do I get" genuinely has a different answer at different trusts, and sometimes a different answer for different relationships within the same trust's own policy. The only way to know your actual entitlement is to read your own trust's special leave (sometimes called compassionate leave, or family and compassionate leave) policy document, or ask your manager or HR team directly — a colleague's experience at your trust, or a different trust entirely, is a reasonable starting expectation but not a guarantee of what you'll be given.

Why this distinction genuinely matters

It's tempting to treat "bereavement leave" as one thing with one answer, but conflating the statutory and discretionary versions can cause two different, equally unhelpful problems. Assuming your local trust's typical practice is a fixed legal right can leave you disappointed or under-prepared if a different manager, or a different trust after you move, applies the discretion differently. Assuming nothing at all is guaranteed can mean under-asking — most trusts do pay some period of compassionate leave as a matter of consistent practice, even though it isn't a fixed statutory number, and it's reasonable to expect it rather than treating any bereavement support as a favour.

The most reliable approach is to treat the Handbook Section 23 child bereavement entitlement and the statutory Parental Bereavement Leave right (where they apply to your situation) as a genuine floor you're entitled to regardless of what any local policy says, and to treat everything else — the amount of paid compassionate leave for other relationships, any further unpaid extension, how flexibly "close relationship" is interpreted — as something to check against your own trust's actual policy document rather than assume from general NHS reputation or a previous employer's practice.

A wider legal right is coming — but it isn't here yet

Beyond the child-specific statutory right described above, the Employment Rights Act 2025 creates a new, much broader day-one right to bereavement leave, covering a significantly wider category of relationships: a spouse, civil partner, partner in a committed relationship, parent, adult child, sibling (including step, half and adopted relationships), certain kinship or foster relationships, and pregnancy loss before 24 weeks. Where it applies, it will give up to two weeks' leave, similar in shape to the existing parental right — but crucially, as currently framed, it is unpaid by default, distinct from the separate paid element that applies to Parental Bereavement Leave specifically.

What to actually do if you need bereavement leave

• • Contact your manager (or your service's out-of-hours reporting line) as soon as reasonably possible — you don't need to wait for a scheduled meeting or have policy details ready.
• • Ask specifically for your trust's special leave, compassionate leave, or 'family and compassionate leave' policy document by name, rather than relying on what a colleague was given.
• • If your situation is the death of your own child, or a stillbirth after 24 weeks, say so specifically and reference Handbook Section 23 child bereavement leave and statutory Parental Bereavement Leave — these are distinct entitlements, not just 'compassionate leave', and they shouldn't be reduced to whatever a general local policy happens to offer.
• • If you think a decision on discretionary compassionate leave is unreasonable given your trust's own policy wording and your actual circumstances, raise it with your manager and, if needed, your union representative — but recognise there's less of a fixed number to point to than there would be for a genuine statutory entitlement.
• • If you need more time than your initial paid allowance covers, ask about unpaid leave, drawing on annual leave, or a phased return, rather than assuming you have to return the day your paid leave ends.

Related guides

This page is general information about NHS bereavement and compassionate leave as FrontlinePay understands current UK employment law and common NHS trust practice, correct to the best of our knowledge as of September 2026. Local trust policies vary, and parts of the law described here (the Employment Rights Act 2025's general bereavement leave right) are not yet in force. This is not legal or HR advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for your own trust's special leave policy, advice from your trade union, or ACAS. FrontlinePay is an independent site and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, ACAS, any NHS trust, NHS England, or the Department of Health and Social Care.