Section 55 — Employment Rights Act 1996: Right to time off for ante-natal care.

Right to time off for ante-natal care. 55 1 An employee who—

a is pregnant, and b has, on the advice of a registered medical practitioner, registered midwife or registered nurse , made an appointment to attend at any place for the purpose of receiving ante-natal care, is entitled to be permitted by her employer to take time off during the employee’s working hours in order to enable her to keep the appointment.

2 An employee is not entitled to take time off under this section to keep an appointment unless, if her employer requests her to do so, she produces for his inspection—

a a certificate from a registered medical practitioner, registered midwife or registered nurse stating that the employee is pregnant, and b an appointment card or some other document showing that the appointment has been made.

3 Subsection (2) does not apply where the employee’s appointment is the first appointment during her pregnancy for which she seeks permission to take time off in accordance with subsection (1).

4 For the purposes of this section the working hours of an employee shall be taken to be any time when, in accordance with her contract of employment, the employee is required to be at work.

5 References in this section to a registered nurse are to such a nurse—

a who is also registered in the Specialist Community Public Health Nurses' Part of the register maintained under article 5 of the Nursing and Midwifery Order 2001, and b whose entry in that Part of the register is annotated to show that he holds a qualification in health visiting.