Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

I am writing to request information relating to ill health retirement for members of your pension scheme(s). For each year since the start of 2020, please provide the total number of scheme members who have:

Additionally, please provide a further breakdown of scheme members, as a whole regardless of year, who successfully applied for IHR for long Covid/post-COVID-19 syndrome by age, gender and overall duration of illness (broken down into 6 month groupings up to 36 months) at time of claim.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 9 July 2025

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

Our response

Question 1 - Been granted ill health retirement (for all health conditions/diagnoses) and at what level/tier their benefit was granted
2020/21 - 1,778
2021/22 - 2,209
2022/23 - 2,766
2023/24 - 2,985
2024/25 - 3,341

Question 2 - Had an application for ill health retirement (for all health conditions/diagnoses) declined
2020/2021 - 361
2021/2022 - 421
2022/2023 - 554
2023/2024 - 602
2024/2025 - 394

Question 3 - been granted ill health retirement for long Covid/post-COVID-19 syndrome and at what level/tier their benefit was granted
2020/2021 - 0
2021/2022 - 17
2022/2023 - 100
2023/2024 - 249
2024/2025 - 257

Question 4 - had an application for ill health retirement for long Covid/post-COVID-19 syndrome declined
2020/2021 - 0
2021/2022 - 16
2022/2023 - 51
2023/2024 - 86
2024/2025 - 35

Question 5 - Appealed an unsuccessful application for ill health retirement for long Covid/post-COVID-19 syndrome

Question 6 - Had a successful outcome to the appeal for long Covid/post-COVID-19 syndrome.

The NHSBSA does hold the information requested in questions 5 and 6; 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.

Please see the following calculations which sets out the estimated cost for compliance with this request:

Please note that condition is not recorded in reportable fashion against Internal Dispute Resolultion (IDR) cases, would take over 18 hours to collate information. We have 2,389 IDR cases submitted between 2020/21 - 2024/25, we estimate that these would take approx. 10 minutes each to review for condition, which would take approximately 398 hours to complete.

Please be advised that due to the way that the information is held by the NHSBSA, it is not possible to submit a refined request under the appropriate limit.

Please see the following link to view the section 12 in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/12

Additionally, please provide a further breakdown of scheme members, as a whole regardless of year, who successfully applied for IHR for long Covid/post-COVID-19 syndrome by age, gender and overall duration of illness (broken down into 6 month groupings up to 36 months) at time of claim.

Please be aware that I have decided not to release the exact number of members, where the number is fewer than 5. This is because the members could be identified, when combined with other information that may be in the public domain or reasonably available.

This information falls under the exemption in section 40 subsections 2 and 3A (a) of the Freedom of Information Act.

This is because it would breach the first data protection principle as:

a) it is not fair to disclose claimant personal details to the world and is likely to cause damage or distress.

b) these details are not of sufficient interest to the public to warrant an intrusion into the privacy of the members.

Please click the below web link to see the exemption in full.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/40

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.