NHS early retirement.

[shed driver]

I'm lucky enough to be able to take early retirement from the NHS next year after almost 36 years service. I've in the NHS pension scheme and am classed as a special case so can retire at 55. I've really looked forward to this following a severe back injury that almost finished my career at 50. I'm just a bit conflicted now with the current job market. It's not made easier by the lack of face to face pensions advice at the trust due to the current situation.

I suppose I could stay on in a job I'm good at, but have very little enthusiasm for at present. I could retire and try a completely different career path. Realistically at 55 it may be difficult to find work - and with Covid pushing many thousands onto the job market it won't be easy.

I had plans to travel, find some kind of employment and use my lump sum to tide me over if needed.

The lump sum isn't huge or life changing and won't buy a property for an income. The monthly pension could be enough to live very, very frugally - but I don't want to be scrimping and counting the pennies every day.

I've never had to look for work whilst in this career - I could always go to wherever appealed at the time. Any thoughts or left field suggestions? One thought was Funeral Care - has anyone done this on here?

SD.

[paulmakin]

is that 36 years total or are you including an adjustment for the x2 after 20 years?

if you're doubling up as part of your special class, another 2 years takes you to maximum and could make quite a difference to the numbers.

dont know your discipline or specialty but the obvious/easy suggestion would be to look into returning as locum/nhsp/bank but perhaps in a role more in keeping with your personal circumstances and aspirations

Edited by paulmakin on Wednesday 5th August 18:33

Edited by paulmakin on Wednesday 5th August 18:34

[valiant]

Are you able to drop the amount of days you do? Might be an alternative for a few years until all this blows over.

[shed driver]

paulmakin said:

is that 36 years total or are you including an adjustment for the x2 after 20 years?

if you're doubling up as part of your special class, another 2 years takes you to maximum and could make quite a difference to the numbers.

dont know your discipline or specialty but the obvious/easy suggestion would be to look into returning as locum/nhsp/bank but perhaps in a role more in keeping with your personal circumstances and aspirations

Hi,

NHS service started in August 1985 with continuous full time since then. I have remained in the original pension scheme. I'm a registered nurse, working in general nursing. I know that I max out my pension at 40 years, by which time I'll be 59 and I don't think my back (or sanity!) will cope with another 4.5 years.

As I have said I can go at 55 so I think it will be a great birthday present to myself to embark on a new direction. Sadly Covid seems to have put a downer on a lot of my plans at present, although I am hopeful things will be much better next year.

I may consider keeping my registration going for a while and doing some agency work as a temporary measure but I must adit my heart isn't in it.

I take it you are familiar with the NHS pension scheme?

SD.

[The Leaper]

Have you looked at the possibility of ill heath early retirement from the NHS Pension Scheme? If you meet the criteria, you should be able get your full pension due as at your normal retirement date paid from the date of your leaving due to IHER.

R

[macstorm73]

What about continuing nursing but for a private school ?

I remember when I worked in one the school nurse appeared to have quite a felxiable day, always very happy and never down about anything. Plus she was only there during term time so plenty of free time.

Pension was good for non-teaching staff, we used to get 12% paid by the school to our 6%

[enpointe]

The Leaper said:

Have you looked at the possibility of ill heath early retirement from the NHS Pension Scheme? If you meet the criteria, you should be able get your full pension due as at your normal retirement date paid from the date of your leaving due to IHER.

R

ill health retirement payment of NHS Pension is extremely hard to claim as to get full you have to be incapable of ANY work and to get partial you have to demonstrate that you are only capable of very limited work and this is solely because of the injury or ill health directly attributable to NHS service.

Edited by enpointe on Friday 7th August 10:39

[The Leaper]

enpointe said:

The Leaper said:

Have you looked at the possibility of ill heath early retirement from the NHS Pension Scheme? If you meet the criteria, you should be able get your full pension due as at your normal retirement date paid from the date of your leaving due to IHER.

R

ill health retirement payment of NHS pension is extremely hard to claim as to get full you have to be incapable of ANY work and to get partial you have to demonstrate that you are only vcapapble of very limited work and this is solely becasue of the injury ot ill health directly attributable to NHS service

The NHS Pension Scheme is governed by regulation. I disagree that it is "extremely hard to claim" an IHER pension. The Scheme has three "tiers" and if you meet any of the criteria you can get the appropriate pension.

If the reason for leaving an employer is because of poor heath, strictly speaking the employer must mention any IHER pension facility if there is one. And you should not expect the employer to offer an IHER pension: usually you have to make a formal application after which there will be a due process to see if criteria are met. Unfortunately, after receiving an application, many employers, the NHS included, do not folllow their due process. This means that if the process is not followed and an application is not successful you can make a formal complaint, and you can use the services of the Pensions Ombudsman at any time as regards that complaint. The PO has made many determinations in the employees favour when a complaint has been brought to his attention for investigation.

Of course, none of this means that you will meet the criteria in the NHS Scheme unless you go through the process.

R.

[enpointe]

The Leaper said:

The NHS Pension Scheme is governed by regulation. I disagree that it is "extremely hard to claim" an IHER pension. The Scheme has three "tiers" and if you meet any of the criteria you can get the appropriate pension.

If the reason for leaving an employer is because of poor heath, strictly speaking the employer must mention any IHER pension facility if there is one. And you should not expect the employer to offer an IHER pension: usually you have to make a formal application after which there will be a due process to see if criteria are met. Unfortunately, after receiving an application, many employers, the NHS included, do not folllow their due process. This means that if the process is not followed and an application is not successful you can make a formal complaint, and you can use the services of the Pensions Ombudsman at any time as regards that complaint. The PO has made many determinations in the employees favour when a complaint has been brought to his attention for investigation.

Of course, none of this means that you will meet the criteria in the NHS Scheme unless you go through the process.

R.

you so nearly get the point but completely miss it ... to get full IHER pension occ health basically have to be shoving you out the door

[shed driver]

Despite a back injury which necessitated several months off work about 4 years ago I doubt I would be eligible for ill health retirement - and it's not something I'd consider at the moment. I must admit after I fell out of bed and was on the floor for seven hours I was contemplating that route, but even a sympathetic Occupational Health department said it would be very doubtful that it would be granted as I was able to walk for short distances at the time.

The pensions department have provided me with a print out of benefits, but I'm more confused by all the different schemes and examples. The lack of face to face advice is what's worrying me at the moment. Email and telephone advice is OK, but I don't even know what to ask!

And the clock has ticked over to under 300 days left now!

SD.

[The Leaper]

enpointe said:

The Leaper said:

The NHS Pension Scheme is governed by regulation. I disagree that it is "extremely hard to claim" an IHER pension. The Scheme has three "tiers" and if you meet any of the criteria you can get the appropriate pension.

If the reason for leaving an employer is because of poor heath, strictly speaking the employer must mention any IHER pension facility if there is one. And you should not expect the employer to offer an IHER pension: usually you have to make a formal application after which there will be a due process to see if criteria are met. Unfortunately, after receiving an application, many employers, the NHS included, do not folllow their due process. This means that if the process is not followed and an application is not successful you can make a formal complaint, and you can use the services of the Pensions Ombudsman at any time as regards that complaint. The PO has made many determinations in the employees favour when a complaint has been brought to his attention for investigation.

Of course, none of this means that you will meet the criteria in the NHS Scheme unless you go through the process.

R.

you so nearly get the point but completely miss it ... to get full IHER pension occ health basically have to be shoving you out the door

I did get your point but maybe you are not getting mine! The example you use is the toughest criteria for tier 1 which is in short that you are not able to do your own job and no other, job but there are other tiers where the criteria is less stringent easier to meet and the pension is lower.

No matter, the OP is not going down the route of looking at IHER anyway.

R.

[T6 vanman]

Do you have transferable skills to do something like blood donation sessions?

They always appear cheerful,