Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of consultants and other NHS workers who will return to work as a result of the removal of the pensions lifetime allowance.

The decision to retire is a personal one and it is not possible to assess the impact of a specific factor. Estimates based on projected pension scheme data indicate that around 22,000 senior National Health Service clinicians could exceed the previous £40,000 annual allowance in 2023/24, and that around 31,000 clinicians had reached at least 75% of the £1.073 million lifetime allowance.

Around 3,000 general practitioners (GPs) and hospital doctors retire each year and around 40% of GPs and 17% of hospital doctors take voluntary early retirement. In 2020/21, there were 1,615 lifetime allowance charges paid over to HM Revenue & Customs in respect of NHS pensions claimed. It is not possible to break down this data by occupation.

The chair of the British Medical Association’s Pension Committee said that removing the lifetime allowance will be potentially transformative for the NHS. The changes announced at Budget will ensure that the vast majority of doctors in the NHS are not disincentivised from remaining in roles and taking on extra hours, as pension tax is no longer a trigger event for retirement.

From 1 April 2023, NHS Pension Scheme members who have put their 1995 Section benefits into payment can re-join the scheme and build further pension if they return to work.