Junior doctors say this pushes women to take maternity leave rather than shared parental leave and may have a detrimental impact on female doctors’ career progression and pay, while men are denied the opportunity to take time off to care for their babies. The law states that to be eligible for shared parental leave you must have been in continuous employment with your employer for 26 weeks, 15 weeks before your baby’s due date. Estimates suggest the take-up of shared parental leave across all employees eligible to take it is as low as 2%. A spokesman said: “As part of the NHS staff council pay, terms and conditions deal we have a commitment to look at enhancing shared parental leave for all NHS staff. We will be working with the BMA to review how we support all doctors in training to be able to access shared parental leave.”

Source: The Guardian December 25, 2018 16:52 UTC