Open letter to the Department of Health
I do not believe for one minute that anyone will actually read this or will take any notice of this letter. Indeed, in responding I may become just another statistic for your numerical manipulators to use in accusing GPs of greed and to bash us further.
I am a 42-year-old GP who qualified in 1992. I have seen our standard of living fall, improve and fall again.
The actual work of a GP during this time has become more intense and complex, even if most of us no longer work out of hours.
As a junior doctor, 100-hour weeks were commonplace and I have rarely worked less than 50 hours a week as a GP. I bloody well deserve every penny in pension that I get.
The idiots in the Government who are making these decisions will not be smashing apart their own pension schemes.
We are already paying employers' and employees' contributions from our pre-tax income, so increasing our contributions further is unfair, even in the light of the current economic situation.
I would not suggest to any GP younger than myself that they remain in the NHS Pension Scheme and I will be looking to extricate myself from it.
I suspect a lot of GPs feel the same way and I'm sure that if my colleagues and I withdraw from the scheme there will be an even bigger pension crisis in the NHS.
From Dr Simon Ruffle
Twyford, Berkshire
Pulse Writing Competition 2024
Fancy yourself as the next Pulse blogger? Enter our writing competition now!
![Pulse Writing Competition 2024](https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Pulse-writing-competition-article-plug-1.jpg)