Checked against gov.uk: 6 September 2026
Section 57A of the Employment Rights Act 1996 gives you the right to take a reasonable amount of unpaid time off work to deal with an emergency involving a dependant. Your employer doesn't have to pay you for it, and it only applies to genuine emergencies, not things you knew about in advance.
The right covers a specific list of situations: your dependant falling ill, being injured or assaulted, or giving birth, making arrangements for the longer-term care of a dependant who's ill or injured, dealing with the death of a dependant, coping with an unexpected breakdown in your childcare or care arrangements, and dealing with an unexpected incident involving your child during school hours. In every case, the word doing the real work is unexpected. A pre-booked hospital appointment, for example, isn't covered, since you knew about it in advance and could have arranged time off through normal channels instead.
The Act defines a dependant as a spouse, civil partner, child, parent, or someone who lives in your household other than as a tenant, lodger, boarder or employee. For the illness or injury situations specifically, the definition stretches further to include anyone who reasonably relies on you for assistance, which can cover an elderly neighbour or a friend in some circumstances, not just close family.
There's no fixed number of hours or days written into the law. The right is to a reasonable amount of time to deal with the immediate emergency, in practice this usually means enough time to handle the crisis and arrange longer-term cover, a day or two in most cases, rather than an extended period of leave. There's also no legal limit on how many separate occasions you can use it, though an employer who feels the right is being used excessively can raise that with you as a performance or conduct matter.
Section 57A itself doesn't require your employer to pay you for this time off. Some employers choose to pay for it anyway, sometimes through a separate compassionate leave policy, but that's a matter of your contract or company handbook, not a statutory entitlement. Worth checking your own contract before assuming either way.
You have to tell your employer the reason for your absence as soon as reasonably practicable, and, except where this genuinely isn't possible until you're back at work, how long you expect to be off. It's a day-one right, there's no minimum length of service required before you can use it, unlike some other forms of leave.
If unexpected time off ever turns into a longer-term gap in childcare while you sort out new arrangements, the childcare cost calculator can help you work out what a temporary change in cover would actually cost.