Request

Can you let me know the number of NHS employees who have retired since August 2021 based on information supplied to them by NHS Pensions, only to receive information at a later date that they had been overpaid due to incorrect information being given to NHS Pensions by their employing NHS Trust. The trust in question is Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 22 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 NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA).

The NHSBSA does not hold any information regarding why a member decides to retire,

As we are unable to identify the relevant pension members we would also not be able to identify if there were any overpayments to those individuals.

Advice and assistance

We would be able to provide the total number of people who have claimed pension benefits since August 2021.

Should this be of interest to you, we would need you to confirm that this should include:

only pension members who were leaving active service with Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, or

all members with any historic/deferred benefits with the Trust.

We would also be able to provide the number of those pension members who have had an overpayment since August 2021.

However, please be aware that overpayments are not caused or assigned to a specific Trust. Therefore, whilst we can identify if there has been an overpayment after claiming benefits, this may not be due to Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust or in connection with the pension member's employment at the Trust.

Please also be aware that we are unlikely to be able to provide a breakdown of the reasons that overpayments have occurred. This is because to determine this would require manual interrogation of each member's pension record and therefore would likely exceed the statutory cost limit under section 12 of FOIA.

Publishing this response

Please note that this information will be published on our Freedom of Information disclosure log at:

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-03396

Your personal details will be removed from the published response.