Drs' payrise should be funded by cutting 23.7% govt pension contribution

They are holding us to ransom with a long strike at Christmas during a flu outbreak and you feel sorry for them?

When i read posts like this, i just wish the Doctors and all other HCP would just walk out, permanent strike or do as you and others suggest and get jobs in the private sector.

See how long it would be before you begged them to return.....

Exactly, they just don’t get it.

Not really. I’m a lawyer on a similar salary to your husband. When can he draw his pension? As if I leave mine in to state retirement age my pot will be similar despite never contributing more than 20% (and for the vast majority of my career only 5%) with an employer contribution of 5%. I will probably retire earlier though. Does your husband get to take the full tax free lump sum too? Also if he takes his full pension half of it will be reverting straight to the treasury in tax so it’s not quite the amazing benefit it’s made out to be. It’s generally thought better for higher earners to keep your total pension at basic rate tax only and invest the excess outside of the pension wrapper for flexibility. What is your own pension looking like? - as a spouse if he dies you won’t get access to that full pot - depending on scheme only about 50% whereas I can pass in my full pot tax free to my husband.

Staff in the private sector rarely go on strike. If doctors don’t like the pay and conditions, at least they get a gold plated pension with no market risk like the rest of us. They should be grateful and stop whinging, entitled fools.

I agree. DH worked in insurance and he had a great employer pension of around 8-10%, I think they were known for being generous with it. But now he’s only been offered the 3% in his last few jobs. I haven’t seen any jobs lately offering over 3%.

When I started work private sector pensions were far superior to public sector pensions. I joined an insurance company with a non contributory final salary pension scheme that was based on 60ths of your final salary not 80ths. If you worked 40 years you could retire on 2/3rds if your final salary - if you started at age 16 you could retire at 56!

I worked there for 7 years in a junior role and now have a pension of over £400 per month for which I never paid a penny!!
public sector have kept their pensions although not as good as they were - I am a nhs widow and receive 50% of my late husband’s pension- the latest nhs pension scheme only offers 32.5% to widows.

Conversely, it’s actually really hard to enter ie the civil service when you work at a senior level from the private sector. The applications and interviews are inaccessible to those not currently working in the civil service and the only viable route in seems to be via consultancy ie pwc

@OhDear111 Same for the private sector workers. They constantly moan and whinge about the public sector pensions but never attempt to get a job in the public sector for these ‘amazing’ pensions. Why? Is it because they know they’d never get the job? Is it because actually they might just realise that it’s harder and hours are longer than the currently want to admit? Never understood the desire for the private sector to belittle, slag off and run down the public sector purely to make themselves feel better for the lack of desire to fight for better pension provisions

ETA: Public sector workers are leaving to join the private sector. However not as many private sector workers are joining the public sector.

This is a real problem, but the BMA messaging (e.g.on their website) focuses on pay.

Agreed. I looked up the consultant who recently operated on me. His educational background was outstanding.

that man, back at 23, had many doors open to him. He carried on to training as a doctor. Many of his contemporaries walked into hedge funds and will now be earning millloons every year. I bet he’s still friends with them.

this is the alternative for a NHs consultant on £150k (yes I know of course he takes private work)

I think the general public easily forget just how elite doctors really are in our workforce and society.

Even a Band 6 NHS worker, only just gets the UK average wage, most will also be paying back student loans (a degree being essential) and staff car parking charges, which many in the private sector don't pay.

Also, very few in the private sector face getting beaten up at work, 1:7 have experienced physical attacks.

I think Doc's are worth every penny & the Govt should negotiate a better offer, after all, they found 3 billion for lifting the 2 child cap, without ensuring any of that extra money goes to children.

Once you ve had your own life or that of loved one bought back to health, your view of Doctors and other NHS workers changes.

Why would the Doctors accept a lower pension, in return for a higher pay rise? their pensions have already been hit after changes in the last decade or so.

Anyone who thinks the pension scheme is so fantastic can always re train and work in the NHS.... many seem to think its a nice cushy number.

Are you saying that staff in the private sector don't complain because they bloody well do. They whinge at the drop of a hat.

When it comes to doctors if you pay peanuts and you get monkeys. I'd quite like a talented, dedicated person and teams to diagnose or operate on me. And monkeys is what we'll get if we don't make the profession attractive.

this is so true. I never understand why public sector works say this. Yes, there is a private alternative for medics or healthcare alllied professions, and consultants for example would be well in demand.

But your average civil servant or local authority worker is going to struggle to move successfully into the private sector. It’s not like it’s an active choice for most.

This sums it up in a nutshell. The budget, once again, hammered those of us in the private sector who are trying to save for our retirement. It’s not about seeing who can dive to the bottom fastest; it’s about fair outcomes for ALL hard-working ordinary people.
Once upon a time public sector salaries were lower and pensions better than the private sector. This made the overall package comparable.
Now their salaries are easily comparable for
most of us (except extremely high ranks) but their pensions are gold-plated and then some. The current public sector pension system should be phased out and everybody should use the same method. That way, private sector workers aren’t funding public sector retirement and when the chancellor raids pension funds, he/she hammers everyone.
Of course, it will never happen because politicians benefit from their public sector pensions and so do the civil servants who advise the government.
Revolution anyone?

There is such a lack of understanding around DB pensions and how they compare to DC pensions.

I'm not a doctor but am on a DB pension. My employer (i.e. the state) does not actually pay anything into my pension at the moment. I do not build up a "pot" made up of my contributions and the employer contributions in the way that DC pensions do. Instead, what I pay towards my pension is used to pay the current pensions of retired people in my scheme. All I gain from my contributions is a promise that, in the future when I retire, the state will pay me a pension that is a calculated fraction of my average career salary.

We see articles all the time saying that the government is contribution 20-odd percent but this is purely a manipulation tool used by the media to create negative feelings in those on DC pensions. No actual money is being "given" to those in DB pension schemes because no pot of money is actually building, unlike in DC schemes where you have an actual pot of money ready for you. It's a red herring.

So the NHS does pay that money but they pay it back to the government along with the workers contributions. All those contributions then pay out to cover for the currently retired people. So if you reduced the value of the scheme it would have a big benefit in cash terms in 25-30 years but from a cash perspective all that would happen for now is the government would have to keep funding current retirees but with less coming in from current employees and their employers.

Just to add, as well, if you opt out the scheme currently you regain your contributions but your employers contributions don't come to you, they just disappear.

Civil servants and local government officers always say they would earn more in the private sector, but never try and get these better paying jobs! Because they don’t have to work longer hours and would lose out on pensions never mind they might not actually get the job!

Then why not accept the offer of extra training spots and prioristing UK doctors - because it is about money.

Not just doctors who get 27% contribution but all civil servants. I am a civil servant and my pension is very generous. I also get paid less than what I would in private sector but do I think it could be cut a little? Yes definitely. Even dropped to 25% would save a small fortune.

a) the NHS pension only has the generous lump sum if you’re in the 1995 section of the pension. No-one joining since 2008 has that.

b) anyone can take a tax free lump sum of 25% of their pension pot after 55. The current NHS arrangement is equivalent to that.

I suggest that if you want a DB pension you train for a job that offers a DB pension.

This. The NHS pension scheme is insanely generous and unfunded. It is economic suicide. And all the posters that say private sector workers should ask them to provide this too! The reason why a private sector company would never do that is that it’s total madness. That total madness described above is being funded by the taxpayer though. And people wonder where all the money goes!

Tbh this is a good idea.

Even if there waa a middle grpund like picking 15%.

I thought the governement just matched ty3 contribution. As in if you paid 9% so did they.

DB pensions should be abolished for everyone, including the civil service and politicians.

DC should be the order of the day for all. A larger than normal employer contribution to DC can substitute adequately.

Needing something makes no difference whatsoever if the country can’t fund it. Do you think that people all over the world receive money to fund their retirements just because they “need” it? Nobody has a contractual right to benefits, which is what a state pension is and always has been in law. The terms and eligibility can be changed at any point and there is no choice but to do this because it’s mathematically unsustainable. It’s a question of “when” not “if” these changes will be made.