Request

I would like to make a request for the following information under the Freedom of Information Act:

Please provide information on the number and average age when general practitioners and hospital doctors claimed their pension on the basis of age, early retirement, and ill health. Please provide this information for each year from 2007/08 to 2021/22.

I have previously been supplied with these data for 2007/08 to 2020/21. I would like comparable data for 2019/20 and 2021/22. I have therefore asked for data for the full period in one request so that I can ensure the data for the different periods can be fairly compared. I am replying to your response to my previous request as I thought that might help you locate the information more quickly. Do let me know if you need any more details to help with this request. If this information is not yet collected for 2021-22, please could you respond once it is available

Response

A copy of the information is attached.

Further to your FOI request regarding the average age when General Practitioners and hospital doctors claimed their pension on the basis of age, voluntary early retirement (VER), and ill health, from 2007/08 to 2021/22 please find attached a spreadsheet providing the information.

Please take account of the following;

• Disregard the column head ‘2015’ as these will be 2015 NHS Pension Scheme members who are also members of the 1995 or 2008 Section and should not be counted twice.

• Medical doctor - ‘specialist’ and ‘non-specialist’ refer to hospital doctors.

• Medical doctor - ‘Principal Practitioner’, ‘Assistant Practitioner’ and ‘GP Locum’ refers to GPs.

Whilst the figures indicate the numbers of staff who claimed their NHS pension in a specific pension year they do not necessarily indicate the number who actually retired. This is because some of them will have returned to the NHS after claiming their NHS pension, albeit maybe in a reduced capacity. The NHSBSA does not hold data in respect of the number of staff who retire from non-pensionable posts.

There are three parts to the NHS Pension Scheme (NHSPS) referred to as the 1995 Section, the 2008 Section, and the 2015 Scheme. More information can be found our website.

Please be aware that an automated report has been created as this is a frequent request, meaning that the underlying code and format have been improved.

Please note that this request and our response is published on our Freedom of Information disclosure log at:

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foi-24417

Data Queries

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

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact nhsbsa.communicationsteam@nhs.net. 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 2022” This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence:

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

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.