More than 18,500 GPs in England are missing ‘vital’ information about their pensions due to maladministration by NHS Business Services Authority and Capita, the BMA has claimed.
A freedom of information (FOI) request to NHSBSA revealed that 18,575 GPs in England had missing pensions records, representing 56% of GPs who should have had their records fully updated to 2022/23, with 156,896 years of pension data missing in total.
The doctors’ union said that this issue is making planning GP workload ‘impossible’ and negatively impacting GPs’ mental and emotional wellbeing.
It blamed failures by both NHSBSA and Primary Care Support England (PCSE), run by the company Capita, for ‘not ensuring pension records are kept up-to-date’, however this claim was rejected.
The impact of GPs being unable to access accurate and up-to-date pension data means it is impossible to plan for retirement and assess their immediate pension tax position, the BMA added.
It warned that this makes planning their workloads ‘incredibly difficult’, as well as preventing GPs from taking on additional work for ‘fear of being caught out’ by ‘punitive’ pension taxation bills.
And a recent survey from the BMA found that of almost 500 GP respondents, four in 10 said failures by PCSE to update their pension record was ‘causing them to experience mental or emotional health problems’, while a third said this was having a ‘negative impact’ on their performance at work.
The BMA is demanding that NHS England personally contacts those GPs who are missing records and works with them to rectify the situation.
The BMA also says that NHSBSA must ‘urgently’ fix issues with their portal, so that GPs can access their information ‘directly’ and ‘prevent problems in future’.
Last year, the BMA had already claimed that thousands of GPs in England were experiencing significant issues with their pension records due to maladministration by Capita.
BMA GP pensions lead Dr Krishan Aggarwal said: ‘For years we’ve been hearing from colleagues who are having difficulty accessing the right information about their pensions, and now these figures show the sheer scale of the problem.
‘The fact that more than half of GPs in England are missing pension data is a scandal. At a time when patients need more GPs working in practices, it is absurd that GPs are unable to make informed decisions about their work commitments and may be prevented from offering themselves up for more sessions.’
He added that this takes a toll on GPs who are struggling through the ‘complex and frustrating’ pension system on top of what is an ‘incredibly stressful and highly-pressured’ job.
He added: ‘It’s imperative that the Government and NHS England get a grip on this and put measures into place to ensure GPs can access up-to-date pension information so that family doctors can focus on what they want to be doing – caring for patients in their practices – rather than dealing with the chaos of a pension system that is not even serving its most basic function.’
Capita told Pulse it rejected the BMA’s claim that the missing records were a result of PCSE failures, and that PCSE is ‘entirely dependent’ on GPs submitting the required forms to enable PCSE to update their pension records.
A spokesperson said: ‘We reject the BMA’s assertion that missing pensions records are the result of PCSE failures. We are actively working with those GPs who need to provide certificates to resolve missing years in their pension records.
‘In the past 12 months we engaged with just under 12,000 GPs who submitted 2022/23 certificates to highlight their missing years, and we received the required certificates and information from over 8,000 of those to allow us to get their records are up to date.
‘PCSE is entirely dependent on GPs submitting the required forms to enable PCSE to update their pension records and we are committed to helping them do that, as demonstrated by our ongoing programme of education, improvements to processes, and joint working with the BMA and other stakeholders.’
NHSBSA responded to the claims saying that to provide accurate pension information for GPs, NHS Pensions needs ‘a fully up to date record’ in respect of their NHS Pension Scheme membership.
A spokesperson told Pulse: ‘Practitioners must submit their Annual Certificate(s) of Pensionable Profits to PCSE, so that PCSE can keep their record updated.
‘If members have any questions about how to submit an Annual Certificate(s) of Pensionable Profits, PCSE has published online guidance at: End of year processes | PCSE, or they can contact PCSE.
‘NHS Pension Scheme members, including general practitioners, can access information about their pension via My NHS Pension – an online portal from NHS Pensions, part of the NHSBSA.’
Pulse has contacted NHS England for comment.
It comes after earlier this week experts warned that GPs affected by the McCloud remedy are facing financial difficulties due to NHSBSA delays in issuing documents.
Now a different FOI request to NHSBSA has found that 4,000 doctors and dentists could face a pension tax charge as a result of the remedy.
As part of the remedy, all affected members will be given a choice of whether they would like to receive pension benefits from their legacy scheme or the post-2015 reformed scheme for the period between the 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022 – a time known as the ‘remedy’ period.
Until they make that choice, affected members have had their pensionable service for the remedy period ‘rolled back’ into their legacy schemes – this may increase the value of their pension benefits above the annual allowance because of differences in how the schemes operate.
The FOI, submitted by financial services provider Wesleyan, found that doctors in the 2008 section of the NHS Pension Scheme are more likely to be at risk of tax charges because of the McCloud remedy, with 4,350 seeing an increase in their total pension input since the rollback, compared to 3,256 in the 1995 scheme.
Wesleyan’s technical team lead Madeleine Dowling said: ‘When it comes to McCloud, there isn’t one path that will be right for everyone. Some people will be better off in one scheme, and some in another, even if that means having a tax charge to pay.
‘We’re seeing clients not able to get the paperwork they need, or when they do, critical information is missing or incorrect.
‘We even know of some people who are having to retire without an accurate understanding of how much they have in their pension – a worrying position for anyone to be in.’
I’d add NHS England to the list of those to blame. They are, after all, responsible for the PCSE contract – and we knew about the scale of these problems 8 years ago when I ran the SAR campaign. I said then that this affected most GPs in the country, we showed that through the dismal quality of the SARs, and NHSE committed to fix it but still haven’t close to a decade later. I still get contacted by people about these issues today. While there are concerning aspects to NHSE being abolished, it will at least mean the DoH are directly responsible for fixing this, and for managing or doing away with PCSE.