Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

I’m writing to submit a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

Please could you tell me how many NHS pension members have applied for Partial Retirement in the calendar years 2023, 2024 and to date in 2025? Please provide a figure for each calendar month.

If possible, please provide a breakdown of the monthly figures between:

a) Medical Staff under capacity code 03

b) GPs, specifically

b) Dental Staff under capacity code 08

d) General Dental Practitioners, Dental Registrars. Consultant Dentists and Dental Surgeons, specifically

c) other

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 28 March 2025.

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

Our response

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested and a copy of the information and notes explaining it is attached.

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

Data is based on partial retirement awards which have been implemented, being grouped by month based on the Payable Date of the award.

There may be partial retirement applications currently awaiting allocation for work completion, however as the type is not identifiable until the award has begun processing, these cannot be differentiated from other Award Types (i.e. Age, ARER, etc.)

Grouping by employment groups is based on the following priority order: GP, GDP, Medical Staff, Dental Staff, Other. A member is counted once based on the first group they are allocated to – i.e. if a member has both GP and Medical Staff service, they are grouped as a GP.

Members are counted once in each month they claim a partial retirement award; members may appear in the data multiple times if they make multiple claims in different periods.

NHS Pensions accept applications 3 months in advance, to allow us to set up their pensions in time for their intended retirement date. This is why the data includes up to July 2025. Please note that figures for future months may change if more people retire/partially retire.

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-02705

Your personal details will be removed from the published response.

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.