Smaller NHS organisations could be forced to refuse requests for reduced hours if proposals in the government’s parental leave Green Paper become law.
Sally Storey, president of the health service human resource managers’ organisation the AHHRM, said many NHS employers already exceeded the requirements set out in the paper.
But she said the plans would hit smaller trusts struggling to meet staffing requirements.
She said: "I would expect some smaller trusts, which typically have a couple of hundred employees, to invoke the right to refuse requests for parental leave.
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"Larger trusts can have several thousand employees and would not be so badly affected."
By Richard Staines
