When members were first moved to the 2015 scheme following Lord Hutton’s review, those within ten years of retirement age on 1 April 2012 were ‘protected’ and allowed to remain in their current 1995 scheme. In 2020, a court ruling said this action was discriminatory in what has become known as the McCloud judgement.

The remedy to this judgement is that everyone who was forced to move to the new scheme can now choose to take advantage of the benefits from their former scheme for a set time from 2015 to 2022. These benefits are likely to be much more valuable. In addition, to reset everyone’s position, all remaining public sector workers will now be moved to the 2015 scheme in April.

You may be unaware that you will effectively lose the protection you were given back in 2015 in just a few months’ time.

If you were born before April 1962, you will stop accruing your previous pension which is based on final salary and length of service in April 2022. You will not be able to draw the newly accrued benefits from age 60. Instead, your new NHS pension will be based on an average salary with benefits available to you at state pension age so most likely, age 67.

You will still retain a final salary link in your old scheme. This means that if your salary goes up a band, this will increase your benefits in that part of your pension. For many people though, moving to the new scheme could be detrimental and may have an impact on lifetime and annual allowance positions as you will have two inputs per year instead of one.

The NHS pension is now so complex and particularly challenging for busy doctors to manage. If you do not have expert help to guide you through this maze, you should seek assistance as soon as possible. Not checking your own position thoroughly could be a very costly mistake.

Please call 020 7636 7006 to speak with one of our adviser team.