In December the Department of Health and Social Care announced proposals to change the NHS Pension Scheme regulations to enable NHS staff to work flexibly up to and beyond retirement age.
We included details of the DHSC’s proposals in our December issue of the Employer Newsletter, including proposals to make it simpler for all members to take partial retirement and enabling members who have 1995 Section benefits to return to NHS employment after retirement and build up further pension benefits in the 2015 Scheme.
The DHSC is currently consulting on the proposals
You can read more about the consultation and submit your views via NHS Pension Scheme: proposed amendments to scheme regulations - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
After the consultation closes on 30 January 2023, the Department of Health and Social Care will publish the outcome of the consultation.
We’ll be starting to inform members soon
Under the disclosure regulations that our Scheme is subject to, we will be required to write to all members to inform them of the changes.
To make sure members who are close to retirement age have a chance to consider the proposed changes before finalising their retirement plans, the Department of Health and Social Care has asked that we start writing to those closest to their normal pension age from mid-January 2023.
Once letters have been sent to those closest to normal pension age, we will then gradually send letters to all members. We expect to finish sending letters by June 2023.
You can view a copy of the letter that will be sent to all members here.
We have also added more information on the proposed changes to our website:
• A new webpage on the proposed retirement flexibilities
• Amends to our webpages on applying for your pension and re-employment.
We’ll continue to update you on the proposed changes
Once the outcome of the consultation is published by the Department of Health and Social Care, we will update our website with more information on how and when the changes will be introduced and what this will mean for you as an employer.
We will also continue to share updates with you via our Employer Newsletter.
Please encourage any members who are interested in partial retirement, or returning to work and continuing to build pension benefits after having taken their pension benefits to continue to check our retirement flexibilities webpage for updates. This is where we will share updates for members.
You can read further information on the proposed changes via our retirement flexibilities webpage and the DHSC's consultation webpage.