Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

‘This request follows an earlier Freedom of Information request to NHS Business Services Authority which was refused under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act on the basis that identifying ill-health retirement cases by medical condition would exceed the cost limit.

In response, this request has been refined to seek only information already held in structured, coded or aggregated form and does not require any manual review of individual case records.

Please confirm whether NHS Business Services Authority holds structured, coded or aggregated data relating to the primary medical cause of NHS Pension Scheme ill-health retirement awards.

If such data is held, please state whether Long COVID, Post-COVID syndrome, or equivalent terminology (including ICD-10 code U09.9 or successors, if used) appears as a distinct category or within a broader condition grouping.

If Long COVID / Post-COVID syndrome is identifiable within any such structured or aggregated data, please provide the total number of ill-health retirement awards granted since 1 March 2020 where this condition was recorded as the primary medical cause, and, where held, a breakdown between Tier 1 and Tier 2 awards.

If NHS Business Services Authority does not hold this information in a retrievable structured, coded or aggregated format, please confirm this and describe at a high level what information is held regarding medical causes of ill-health retirement awards.

This request does not require review of individual medical records, free-text fields or new analysis.’

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 27 November 2025.

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

Our response

I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you requested is not held by the NHSBSA in a structured, coded or aggregated form.

NHS Pensions only record if ill health is accepted and if it is Tier 1, Tier 2 or Serious Ill Health (SIH).

Medical assessors assess each claim and provide us with their decision. There is no reason for the NHSBSA to record the medical condition.

We do hold the reason for the claim in the member’s file, and we are provided with the assessor’s rationale in a decision letter, however, as explained in previous FOI responses, we would need to manually interrogate each file to determine the reason for the claim and the reason for acceptance or rejection.

Data Queries

Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data.

Reusing the data and copyright

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “NHSBSA Copyright 2025”. Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.