Zarah Choudhary18,575 GPs in England have missing pensions records, representing 56% of GPs in the country who should have had their records fully updated to 2022/23, according to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from the BMA to NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA).
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.
This makes planning their workloads incredibly difficult – and crucially in many cases will prevent GPs from taking on additional work for fear of being caught out by punitive pension taxation bills in the future.
At a time when demand is outstripping staff in general practice, this is an absurd situation, the BMA said.
The BMA blamed failures by both NHSBSA and Primary Care Support England (PCSE) for not ensuring pension records are kept up-to-date.
Meanwhile 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.
NHS Pensions are legally obliged to provide GPs in England with an annual benefit statement for their pension, but are failing to do so.
Meanwhile GPs are supposed to be able to access all of their pension records online via NHSBSA’s My NHS Pension portal, but the BMA said the program is not fit for purpose.
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 said that NHSBSA must urgently fix issues with the portal, so that GPs can access their information directly and prevent problems in future.
Dr Krishan Aggarwal, BMA pensions committee deputy chair and GP pensions lead, 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.”
“In addition to the impact of this on practice capacity is the toll it takes on individual GPs who are struggling through the complex and frustrating pension system on top of what is an incredibly stressful and highly-pressured job.
“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.”
Workplace Journal has reached out to the NHS for a comment.
