Redundancy During Maternity Leave in the NHS: Your Enhanced Rights

The headline right: priority for suitable alternative vacancies

This is the core protection, and it's genuinely stronger than the general right to be considered for suitable alternative employment covered in our companion guide on that topic. Under the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999 (as amended), if you're within the protected period and your role is redundant, and there's a suitable alternative vacancy available, you must be offered that vacancy — not simply invited to apply and compete for it alongside other at-risk colleagues. If more than one at-risk employee could suitably fill the same vacancy, and one of them is within their protected period under this right, that employee generally gets it, ahead of colleagues who don't have the same protection, even if another candidate might otherwise seem equally or more suitable on paper.

The protected period, and how it changed in April 2024

Understanding exactly when this protection starts and ends matters enormously, because the rules changed significantly and it's easy to find outdated information online that understates how far the current protection actually reaches.

Before the change, the priority right for alternative vacancies broadly applied only during maternity, adoption or shared parental leave itself — protection effectively ended the moment you returned to work. The Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023, implemented through the Maternity, Adoption Leave and Shared Parental Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2024 and in force from 6 April 2024, extended this substantially in two directions at once:

• ✓ Backwards, into pregnancy itself — protection now starts as soon as you tell your employer you're pregnant, well before any maternity leave begins, covering redundancy decisions made during pregnancy itself.
• ✓ Forwards, well beyond the return to work — for maternity and adoption leave, protection now continues for a full 18 months from the expected week of childbirth (or actual birth date, if notified) or the date of placement, covering a substantial period after you're back at work, not just the leave period itself.

If your own redundancy situation involves a return-to-work date some months in the past, don't assume the protection has lapsed without checking the actual 18-month window against your own dates — under the current rules, it very likely hasn't.

Pregnancy, adoption leave and shared parental leave

The 2024 changes cover more than just maternity leave, and the exact trigger and duration differ slightly by leave type, so it's worth checking which applies to your own situation precisely.

• • Pregnancy (before any leave starts) — protection begins once you've notified your employer of your pregnancy, in line with the usual maternity notification rules, and continues through to the start of any maternity leave you go on to take, from which point the 18-month rule below takes over.
• • Maternity leave — protection runs for 18 months from the expected week of childbirth, or from the actual date of birth if you've told your employer that date, whichever gives the clearer reference point in your own case.
• • Adoption leave — protection runs for 18 months from the date your child was placed with you for adoption.
• • Shared parental leave — protection applies once you've taken at least 6 continuous weeks of shared parental leave, and then runs for 18 months from your child's date of birth or placement, broadly mirroring the maternity and adoption position once that 6-week threshold is met.

The shared parental leave threshold is the one detail that most often catches people out: taking SPL in shorter, non-continuous blocks that never add up to six continuous weeks in one go doesn't unlock the extended 18-month protection in the same way — worth being aware of if you're weighing up how to structure shared parental leave and redundancy risk is a live concern in your workplace at the same time.

What "priority" actually means in practice

In a real NHS redundancy process, this typically plays out through the redeployment and vacancy-matching stage that should already be running alongside consultation — see our companion guide to the at-risk register and redeployment process for how that machinery generally works. What the priority right adds, on top of the ordinary process, is that your Trust needs to:

• ✓ Identify you as being within a protected period specifically, not just generally 'at risk', so the priority right is actually applied to your case rather than overlooked.
• ✓ Search actively for suitable alternative vacancies for you, in the same way as for any at-risk employee, rather than waiting for you to find and apply for something yourself.
• ✓ Where a suitable vacancy exists and more than one at-risk person could fill it, offer it to you first if you qualify for this protection, rather than running an open competition that treats you the same as unprotected colleagues.
• ✓ Be able to show, if challenged, that the search for a suitable vacancy for you was genuine and that the priority right was actually applied, not simply asserted after the fact.

If you're currently at risk and pregnant or on qualifying leave, it's reasonable — and sensible — to raise this specific right directly and in writing with your manager, HR, or your union representative, rather than assuming it will automatically be applied correctly without you flagging it. Trusts vary in how well their internal policies have caught up with the 2024 changes, and a clear, early written reminder of your specific rights can help avoid a dispute arising later.

If your Trust doesn't comply

Where a Trust makes someone redundant during a protected period without properly offering a suitable alternative vacancy that did exist, the resulting dismissal is capable of being treated as automatically unfair — meaning there's no minimum length of service required to bring a claim, unlike an ordinary unfair dismissal claim. Separately and additionally, failing to properly apply this right, or selecting someone for redundancy connected to their pregnancy or leave in the first place, can also amount to pregnancy and maternity discrimination under the Equality Act 2010, which carries its own, uncapped compensation basis, distinct from the capped basic and compensatory awards available for unfair dismissal.

As with any employment claim, you'll generally need to go through ACAS Early Conciliation before lodging an employment tribunal claim, and the usual strict tribunal time limits apply — broadly six months less a day from the relevant date for claims arising on or after 1 October 2026 (the limit was three months less a day before that, per ACAS). Our companion guide to what happens after an NHS dismissal covers the ACAS and tribunal mechanics, including these time limits, in full — it's worth reading alongside this page for the process itself, since the substance here is specific to pregnancy and family leave but the procedural route into a tribunal is the same one that applies generally.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

This page is general information about enhanced redundancy protection during pregnancy, maternity, adoption and shared parental leave, as FrontlinePay understands the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999, the Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023, and the 2024 implementing regulations, correct to the best of our knowledge as of September 2026. This is not legal advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice from Maternity Action, your trade union, ACAS, or a specialist employment solicitor about your own specific dates and circumstances. FrontlinePay is an independent site and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, Maternity Action, ACAS, any NHS trust, or NHS England.