Proposed changes to the NHS Pension Scheme to attract and retain staff

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) recently consulted on proposed changes to the NHS Pension Scheme. The proposals aim to help employers to attract and retain valuable experienced staff, maintaining the capacity required to deliver high quality patient care. The consultation will introduce some of the pension measures announced in Our plan for patients.
Our response to the consultation
We gathered the views of employers and responded to the consultation on their behalf. Thank you to all who contacted us to provide information and examples of your experiences to inform our feedback. Our response highlighted the following key points:
- Employers support the introduction of new retirement flexibilities for members of the 1995 Section of the NHS Pension Scheme. We made practical suggestions for how the changes should be implemented and administered.
- Employers support the proposed changes to ensure rapidly rising inflation is not included in annual allowance calculations. While the change is welcomed, we strongly believe more significant scheme reform is needed to ease the impact of pension tax.
- Employers feel the proposals will help to retain highly valuable and experienced colleagues, and will support workforce capacity and service delivery. The changes will ensure the NHS Pension Scheme remains an attractive and a valuable part of the Total Reward offer.
Access our consultation response.
We will update employers on next steps once the consultation outcome has been published by DHSC on the GOV.UK website.
Overview of the proposed changes
The consultation set out the following proposals:
Other technical amendments are proposed to ensure general practitioners pay the correct contribution rate over the full scheme year and to simplify access to the scheme for primary care networks (PCNs).
Read the DHSC consultation in full.