To have thought it was normal to retire from the nhs on your 60th birthday

[Vinteduser8]

Colleague is sixty late July. I asked him what plans he had for retirement and he wasn’t happy as he has no plans to retire.

I work in the NHS & there's 3 pension schemes depending on when you started. The 1995 scheme has a retirement age of 60 but you can take a reduced lump sum & pension from age 50 but you lose a significant proportion. Many people take their pension at, say 55, then return on reduced hours.
Not familiar with 2008 scheme but in the 2015 scheme the retirement age is the same as SPA.

why do you think that's normal?
What is it based on?
Is it just the NHS or do you think everyone retires on their 60th birthday?

Seems like quite an odd thing to just assume, and tbh I can understand why he was a bit annoyed - either he doesn't want to retire and thought you were writing him off as too old to work when he's still got a lot to give, or he'd love to retire but won't be able to afford to for another 7 years and you asking him about it felt like rubbing it in!

I guess it’s a bit of an assumption.

All DHs family are NHS nurses and all retired by 60 after working in NHS 35+ years. They lived on NHS pensions until state pension kicked in and managed pretty well. They’d paid mortgages off by the time they retired.

we’re mortgaged until DH is 70 and I’m 66 so I can’t see us retiring early!

I am almost 67 and still working frontline, although part time now.
I don’t have to work for financial reasons but still enjoy it. I love working for the NHS and work with a great team.

A lot or people in professional jobs who started 35+ years ago got to retire at 60 but this is absolutely not the case for anyone in the NHS who started in the last 20 years

My mum turns 70 this year and still works for the NHS

State pension is over 66, few can afford to retire until close to that date. Very rude to imply they should be retiring

As a number of people have already said, the 1995/2008 section of the pension has a normal retirement age of 60. The 2015 pension can be taken at state pension age.

Thanks to McCloud, there is a remedy period from 2015-2022 for which you can choose to to move back to the old pension. So those with a large amount of their working lives before 2022 can retire at 60, with no reductions, and then just take the little extra accrued over the last 2 years at state retirement age.

If I were 60, I’d be running for the hills now. However, I have come across many very elderly doctors for whom I guess that being a doctor is tied up so much in their self-image, that they don’t feel able to retire.

I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume someone who's years away from retirement age is going to be planning to wind down the minute the clock strikes midnight on their 60th birthday. I can see why they'd be a bit annoyed - especially if it was someone who either a) lives to work or b) possibly won't be able to afford to retire even once they're 68.

When someone comes back from their honeymoon, do you think it's okay to immediately ask them when they intend to start a family?

Good idea to raise the question as if your colleague is in the 1995 scheme, if he doesn't take it at 60, he looses it, no late retirement factors in the 1995 scheme. Options to retire and return or partial retirement at 60 are there ( hopefully management will agree to) so you can get your 1995 pension and carry on working and paying in to your 2015 pension.

Why would you ask that it's so rude!

My mother (early 70s) died suddenly during a holiday period from the job she was still working part-time in - not the NHS, though. I got a death in service payment from the local council due to this (thanks, mum!). I asked the lady at the council if my mammy was the oldest person they there and she blinked in surprise and said, "oh no dear, we have ladies in their 80s still on our books."

(Hopefully) won't be me but it takes all kinds.

Most people I know in the NHS talk of nothing but their retirement date from 45 onwards.

So they have to go at 60?

I don’t believe he started till early 2000’s

Some can go at 55.
I can't go until im 60.. new ones (late 2015 onwards I think?) can't go until their national retirement age (would be 67 for me if I hadn't worked in the nhs over 20 years)

No, they don't have to go at 60.

it would be wonderful if the normal retirement age is the 2008 scheme was 60!! It’s 65 which then changed to whatever the rising SPA becomes in 2015

I can and will take my 1995 pension at 60 (I'm 55) but I'll probably flexi retire and continue to contribute to the 2015 bit, but I am covered by the McCloud ruling which I haven't investigated yet.

It also depends on whether you are in a clinical or non-clinical role.

I worked in NHS administration and was expecting to work until I was 66 but retired 3 years early

Of course it is. If he is 60 now, he should have been able to retire 5 years ago at 55.
But perhaps he has financial issues which mean that his pension would be insufficient?

You were incredibly rude to assume

She didn't assume. She asked him.

Really not unusual for people who started working in the early 1980s, working in such a soul destroying place as the NHS (basically add any publicly funded occupation in to that) to be making retirement plans at 60 if they are still working. I mean, obviously ALL of us should be doing some retirement planning a long time before that, but realistically choosing to leave at 60 is what the overwhelming majority would do if they could afford to.

Starting in the early 2000s he could have 20 years or so in the 1995 scheme from when started until April 2022, not definite as may have moved to the 2008 scheme. The NHS Pension is not straightforward!

You were rude and ageist - no one has to retire at any age. Other people’s finances are their own concern.

NHS staff may not have signed up for the pension and there’s a big gap until the state pension age of 67.

Nobody has to retire anymore. Pension age is 66/67. It's rude to ask.