NHS: Pensions

(asked on 30th January 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many former NHS employees are in receipt of reduced pension entitlement as a result of deciding to end their careers working on a part-time basis.


Answered by
Edward Argar Portrait
Edward Argar
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 7th February 2020

The following table shows the number of pensioner members of the NHS Pension Scheme who retired whilst working part-time, the number of members who worked part-time throughout their career, and the number of members who moved to part-time hours during the final five years prior to retirement.

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Pensioner members who worked part-time on their last day of service

Pensioner members who worked part-time hours throughout their career

Pensioner members who were whole-time and only went part-time in final five years prior to last day of service

Number of members

365,851

183,511

42,239

Note: Approximately 40,000 pensioner members had pensions put into payment before the NHS Business Services Authority modernised their administration systems, so their former working pattern is unknown.

All members of the final salary section of the 1995/2008 NHS pension scheme have their pension calculated using their full-time equivalent pay. A decision to work part-time hours means that the length of pensionable service built up is proportionately less compared to a full-time member. However it does not affect their final pensionable pay providing their whole-time equivalent pay figure remains the same. Members of the 2015 NHS Pension Scheme build up pensions using a Career Average Revalued Earnings method. This means that their pension is based on the actual pay earned in each year. A decision to work part-time does not affect the value of the pension accrued in earlier years.

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