Sep 13 2004
One in two doctors believe that an increase in normal pension age from 60 to 65 will deter people from joining the NHS, according to a survey of doctors by the BMA.
The BMA invited doctors to take part in an online survey to gather their views on retirement and the NHS pension to help inform its discussions with the NHS Confederation who are leading a review of the NHS pension scheme (England and Wales) on behalf of the Department of Health. Nearly 5000 doctors responded to the BMA's survey.
At present, the minimum age at which a pension can be taken from the NHS pension scheme, without financial penalty, is 60. The Government has stated its intention to increase this to 65 for new employees from 2006 and existing staff from 2013. The survey found that doctors aged under 60 were most likely to plan to retire at 60 and only 8% of this age group currently intend to work until aged 65 or older.
Doctors were asked about the likely effect on recruitment to the NHS if the pension age was increased. Just over half (51%) of doctors in the survey thought it would deter people from joining the NHS and virtually nobody (0.3%) thought that it would attract more people.
When asked what effect an increase in pension age from 60 to 65 might have on their decision to leave or retire from the NHS, three out of four doctors said they would leave on or before the date they intended, regardless of the change in pension age.
Dr Simon Fradd, Chairman of the BMA's Pensions Committee said: "Doctors have made it very clear that raising the pension age is unlikely to have the desired effect of encouraging more doctors to work longer for the NHS. In fact, there is strong evidence that some doctors will leave earlier than they had planned if the pension age was raised from 60 to 65.
"But this is wider than just doctors. The Government should be offering incentives that will encourage healthcare professionals to work longer for the NHS rather than putting financial pressure on people to retire later. Advice from actuaries is that the move from 60 to 65 represents a 3% per annum decrease in remuneration. It would be more palatable if the whole of this 3% was reinvested in the scheme to improve benefits.
"Despite recent improvements in the number of doctors and other health care staff, the NHS is still critically short of the workforce it needs. The Government should be doing all it can to reward its staff for their commitment to the NHS rather than penalising them for working longer."