Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

‘1) I would like to know the standard operating procedure for applications for ill health retirement. In particular I would like to see how ill health retirement applications are prioritised over planned applications in terms of operating procedures, policies, performance targets, reporting and training.

2) I would also like to know for the last 24 months performance for

a) terminally ill members IHR application

b) tier 2 members IHR application

c) tier 1 members IHR applications

d) non ill health retirement application.

The performance measure should include days from receipt of AW8 to advice letter and payment.’

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 31 January 2025.

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

Our response

Question 1

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.

How ill health retirement applications are prioritised over non ill health applications.

NHS Pensions has a dedicated team who process Ill Health Retirements, this team is separate from the team that processes “planned” retirements. If NHS Pensions is notified that a member’s life expectancy is less than 12 month, there is a fast track process in place to prioritise these.

The following link advises the current processing times within NHS Pensions - https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/current-processing-times-nhs-pensions

Question 2

We have considered this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and are issuing a refusal notice under section 17 of the FOIA.

The NHSBSA does hold the requested information; however, we estimate that the cost of compliance with the request would exceed the appropriate limit under section 12 of the FOIA.

We estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450. The limit has been specified in The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the NHSBSA holds the information, and locating, retrieving, extracting and checking the information.

To determine the date an AW8 (or AW8P) was received, we would need to manually interrogate each record. Since 1 January 2023, the below figures show how many members have had an award payable. These figures are based off when the award was implemented.

Non-ill health – 139,452

Serious ill health – 517

Tier 1 ill health – 3,238

Tier 2 ill health – 2,844

Total – 146,051

We estimate it would take 5 minutes to manually interrogate each record.

146,051 x 5 minutes = 730,255 minutes (12,170 hours)

Data Queries

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing, the data please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

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.