Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average retirement age for NHS England doctors was for each of the last five years.

This information is not collected in the format requested. National Health Service doctors includes hospital doctors and general practitioners (GPs), which are accounted for separately. There are also two types of retirement; age retirements and voluntary early retirements, which have different average retirement ages.

The attached table shows the average retirement ages for age retirements and voluntary early retirements for hospital doctors and GPs from the 1995 Section of the NHS Pension Scheme. The 1995 Section has a retirement age of 60 years old. Age retirements are taken at or beyond 60 years old and voluntary early retirements are taken before the age of 60 years old. The table also shows the volume of each type of retirement which demonstrates the proportions age and voluntary early retirements. As an individual may choose to claim their pension for a number of reasons, it is not possible to isolate the impact of a single factor on retirement rates.