Time Off for Medical Appointments: The UK Rules
"I've got a dentist appointment on Thursday afternoon." It is one of the most routine conversations in any workplace, and one of the least well understood. Most managers assume there is a legal right to time off for medical appointments. Most employees assume the same. Both are usually wrong.
There is no general statutory right. There are, however, four specific exceptions where the law does bite — and two of them carry serious discrimination risk if you get them wrong. This guide separates what you must do from what you should do.
The General Position: No Automatic Right
For a routine GP, dentist, optician or hospital appointment, an employee has no statutory right to time off — paid or unpaid. In principle an employer can require staff to:
- Arrange appointments outside working hours where possible
- Use annual leave, including half days
- Take the time unpaid
- Make the time up later, or draw on time off in lieu
That is the legal floor. It is rarely the sensible policy, and we come back to why below. But it is where the law starts, and your contract or staff handbook may already give more — in which case the contract binds you.
The Four Exceptions
1. Antenatal Care — Paid, From Day One
A pregnant employee has the right to paid time off for antenatal care under sections 55 and 56 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. It is a day-one right with no qualifying service, and antenatal care is defined broadly — it covers medical appointments, plus relaxation and parenting classes where recommended by a registered professional.
After the first appointment, you can ask to see the appointment card and a certificate confirming the pregnancy. You cannot unreasonably refuse the time off. Refusing it, or docking pay for it, is both a breach of the ERA and a likely pregnancy discrimination claim.
The father, or the mother's partner, has a separate right to unpaid time off to accompany her to up to two antenatal appointments, capped at six and a half hours each.
2. Adoption Appointments
Where a couple adopts, the primary adopter has the right to paid time off to attend up to five adoption appointments. The secondary adopter has the right to unpaid time off for up to two.
3. Disability-Related Appointments
This is the exception employers most often miss. Where an employee is disabled within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010, allowing time off for treatment or assessment connected to that disability may be a reasonable adjustment — and in many cases allowing it paid, or not counting it in absence triggers, is the adjustment.
An employee having regular dialysis, physiotherapy after a spinal injury, or ongoing treatment for a long-term mental health condition is not in the same position as someone booking a check-up. Applying a blanket "use your holiday" rule to them is how employers end up defending a failure-to-make-adjustments claim.
The same logic runs through absence triggers. If disability-related appointments count towards a Bradford Factor score in the same way as any other absence, the score itself becomes the discriminatory act. Discount them, and record why.
The question is never "is this appointment covered by a statutory right?" It is "does this appointment relate to a disability?" Get that one right and most of the risk disappears.
4. Appointments for Someone Else
An employee taking a dependant to an appointment is in different territory again:
| Situation | Right | Paid? |
|---|---|---|
| Planned appointment for a dependant with a long-term care need | Carer's leave — one week a year | Unpaid |
| Sudden emergency involving a dependant | Time off for dependants, ERA 1996 s57A | Unpaid |
| Routine appointment for a healthy child | No statutory right | Policy or annual leave |
The distinction between the first two matters: carer's leave is for planned care of a long-term need, the dependants right is for the unforeseen. Our guide to carer's leave sets out the notice rules and the qualifying conditions.
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Why the Legal Minimum Is the Wrong Policy
You are entitled to insist that every appointment comes out of annual leave. Employers who do it consistently tend to discover three things.
People stop asking and start calling in sick. A day of sickness absence costs you a full day of production and possibly SSP. An hour off for a dentist costs you an hour. Making the honest route expensive selects for the dishonest one.
Whole days get burned on short appointments. If your leave system only handles full days, a 9.20am blood test costs someone a day. That is not a policy choice, it is a tooling limitation, and it is worth fixing before rewriting the policy.
Appointments get delayed. Deferred diagnosis becomes long-term absence. The cheapest hour you will ever give someone is the one that catches something early.
What a Good Policy Looks Like
- Say what the default is. Most employers land on: arrange outside hours where you reasonably can; where you cannot, take it as paid time off up to a stated annual limit, or as half-day holiday.
- Name the statutory exceptions — antenatal, adoption, disability-related, dependants — so managers are not deciding from first principles.
- State that disability-related appointments are treated separately and excluded from absence triggers.
- Allow part-day bookings. Whatever the policy says, this is what determines whether it works in practice.
- Require reasonable notice, with an obvious exception for urgent referrals.
- Record appointments as their own category, not as sickness. Otherwise your absence data is describing something that is not happening.
- Apply it consistently. Discretion exercised differently by different managers is where claims come from.
If you are writing this from scratch, it belongs alongside your wider attendance policy rather than in a standalone document nobody reads.
Appointments, Sickness and SSP
A question that comes up constantly: if someone is at hospital all day, is that sickness absence?
It depends on why they are there. Attending a routine outpatient appointment while otherwise fit for work is not incapacity, and Statutory Sick Pay is not payable for it. Being admitted, undergoing a procedure, or recovering afterwards is incapacity, and the normal SSP rules apply — including the requirement for four or more consecutive days of incapacity before SSP becomes payable.
The practical consequence is that recording a half-day appointment as sickness is usually wrong twice over: it does not attract sick pay, and it inflates the employee's absence record for no reason. Give appointments their own category. It takes one configuration change and removes a recurring source of unfair trigger points.
Key Takeaways
- There is no general right to time off for routine medical appointments, paid or unpaid
- Antenatal care is paid, from day one; partners get unpaid time off for up to two appointments
- Primary adopters get paid time off for up to five adoption appointments
- Disability-related appointments may require time off as a reasonable adjustment, and should be excluded from absence triggers
- Appointments for dependants fall under carer's leave or the dependants right, both unpaid
- A strict "use your holiday" rule tends to convert cheap hours into expensive sick days
- Part-day leave booking is what makes any policy here workable
Frequently Asked Questions
Do employers have to give time off for medical appointments in the UK?
There is no general statutory right to time off for routine medical or dental appointments. Employers can require staff to arrange them outside working hours, use annual leave, or take the time unpaid — subject to four important exceptions.
Do you have to be paid for a doctor's appointment?
Not as a general rule. Paid time off is required for antenatal care and for a primary adopter's adoption appointments, and may be required as a reasonable adjustment where the appointment relates to a disability.
Can an employer refuse time off for a hospital appointment?
For a routine appointment, yes — though refusing outright is usually poor practice. If the appointment relates to a disability or to pregnancy, refusing carries a real discrimination risk.
What time off is there for antenatal appointments?
A pregnant employee has the right to paid time off for antenatal care from day one. The father or the mother's partner has the right to unpaid time off to accompany her to up to two appointments, capped at six and a half hours each.
Can employees use annual leave for medical appointments?
Yes, and many employers allow half-day or hourly holiday for exactly this. It needs your leave system to support part-day bookings, otherwise people take a whole day for a 20-minute appointment.
What about appointments for a child or elderly parent?
A planned appointment for a dependant with a long-term care need can fall under carer's leave, which gives a week of unpaid leave a year. Sudden emergencies fall under the separate right to time off for dependants.