GP TechLead

The Type 2 NHS Pension Scheme Self-Assessment Form is a critical document for salaried GPs, solo practitioners, and locum providers to accurately report their earnings and contributions to the NHS pension scheme. The 2022-2023 form deadline is upcoming, so I thought a guide might be useful for those struggling to complete it.

Lots of interesting news came for doctors this week in the form of the Budget and also an announcement from NHS England. Jeremy Hunt, the current chancellor of the Exchequer who is control of the countries finances, was previously the infamous health secretary who battled the junior doctors back in 2016. Since then though, he has claimed that he more sympathetic to doctors and has claimed that he will solve the NHS pension issue for high-earning doctors. Well in this announcement on the 15th March has gone some way to solving it.

Ever tried to get your NHS pension statement from the total rewards statement website? It's a total lottery if it will work. One day it will give an error and say the website is down, rarely you manage to get in (but then the numbers are wrong) and sometimes you get a funny error like below. Not helpful to those that are self-employed.... Very useful total rewards statement website. No reply back, been 2 weeks now. Very efficient system...

Previously I discussed the proposals to change the amount of that employees contribute to the NHS pension. Those on lower incomes will be contributing more and those on higher incomes will contribute less. This was meant to be rolled in this April 2022, but this is now going to be started from October 2022 with the final changes to the employee contributions in April 2023.

The annual allowance allowance calculation for the NHS pension is confusing. I wrote about it here but I still have to go back to refresh my knowledge about it. The hard bit about working it out for tax purposes is to think that it's not the monetary amount you contribute, but its the annual growth of the your pension pot. The maths involved makes my head hurt. 

Going back to my previous introductory  NHS pension post , employee contribution to the NHS pension was tiered dependant on your earnings. Below was the previous banding and employee contribution rates. 

What is the point of saving? For some it is to buy a house, for others its to buy a nice car or a big holiday. But once you're settled in your living arrangement or there is nothing material to save for, what else should you do with your money? Do you live to work or do you work to live? These deep questions may make you think about the purpose of work and what we really do with our money.

As a member of the BMA, I occasionally get promotional emails from them and their partners. One such partner is Chase de Vere, an independent financial advisor. They send out regular notices of their free webinars talking about retirement planning, wealth building and investment advice, which can be be quite interesting to watch. However one such email invited me to get a free 'financial health check' - this seemed too good to pass up! I thought I'd go through what happened during this health check, and to remind you that no company gives you something of value that is truly free. 

So in NHS pension news, there has been talk about the McCloud judgement. This relates to two different cases made against the government by a judge and firefighters in regards to public service pensions. They won their case against the government on age-discrimination basis and therefore the government will be forced to act. Here is the very simplified break down of this ruling.

Due to the chat about 1% pay rises for NHS staff, a discussion amongst friends brought up the NHS pension again. One thing not mentioned previously, was the illness and death benefits that it brings. This document outlines a lot about the 2015 pension scheme and also talks about what would happen if you were too ill to work. This is only applicable to the 2015 scheme; given the recent McCloud judgement, I am unsure if we have all reverted back to the legacy schemes. However, come April 2022, everyone should be on the career-average 2015 (maybe renamed to 2022) NHS pension scheme so hopefully this should still be applicable then. 

Last post I discussed the intricacies of the annual allowance, how earning above a certain amount or being stung by changing CPI's can cause you to be foul of the annual allowance. This post I will go over the lifetime allowance and how it applies to the 2015 scheme.

In my first post I explained how the NHS pension is calculated and it's more obvious benefits - I suggest reading that first otherwise it this may not make too much sense. The main reason I actually wanted to look into it was to calculate the annual allowance and to see if it was worth topping up a personal allowance. What I found was, that it was very complicated so hopefully I will be able to break it down for you in a easy to follow manner. Again, I am only talking about the 2015 NHS pension.