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.

No you dont even have to do that anymore. DH returned 4 days after his 'retirement' on exactly the same hours and salary plus his lump sum and monthly payment.

i think for tax purposes you need to lose 10% but as usual all clear as mud in nhs.

I thought this was better than the retire and return - people in our trust who retired and returned ended up doing different jobs and not always with same conditions.
I had wanted to do part time for some time but management very anti - this way they had no choice and I reduced hours by more than the 10%. I now have time to do what I want and take home pay about the same.

Nothing to do with tax, it's just the scheme rules.

There are 2 options:

• Retire and return - break in service & new contract (so they can change your band, or your T&C, and if the break is over a certain length your redundancy rights reset to 0), no restrictions on hours or pay.

• Partial retirement - no break, keep same T&C and rights, have to reduce pensionable pay by 10% for 12 months (usually by dropping hours, but there are other options).

It's 60 for the 95 part then. Don't leave it later, because there's no late retirement factor and you don't get missed payments as backpay.

For the McCloud calulation, they will be including both options in forecasts once they've worked them all out but ita fairly easy to do yourself. Don't assume the 95 is automatically better - if you work past 60 the 2015 is often better because of the much higher accrual rate.

thats interesting @NoBinturongsHereMate
i guess the reason is money you could claim
otoh if you leave the NHS past 60 you can claim all at a later date, including backdated

@NewName24 I have worked in HR for 30 years including time in the NHS and yes “chats” with your colleagues about matters relating to protected characteristics such as age can amount to harassment. There’s case law from tribunal claims for example in one, the colleagues called their team member “gramps”, which they argued was an affectionate term. Even what you term as “chat” or the term “banter” can create a hostile environment for someone. That could include implying someone should retire by asking them about it. So no my comment was not ridiculous.

I qualified in 2001 and I’m in the 1995 and 2015 NHS pension. Retirement age for 1995 is age 60 so he’ll need to claim that but he will still be in 2015 pension as well so can either claim it early with penalties or carry on until age 67. We get the option to retire and return which a lot of nurses do. It’s one of the best pensions and we can claim it and continue to work if we want to. With so many staff shortages in the NHS it’s great that staff can carry on working if they want to.

otoh if you leave the NHS past 60 you can claim all at a later date, including backdated

You can only backdate to the point you left the NHS, not to 60 if you left after that.

And you get the backdated amount all in 1 lump, which can mean a hefty chunk of extra tax (depending on your other income).

I think it's a rude question to ask if someone has not mentioned retirement themselves, suggests you think they are past it. A bit like asking a woman if they are pregnant when they put on a bit of weight.

Second this statement.
I was 60 last year. Retired and took 1995 pension and had option to retire and return and continue to pay into 2015 scheme or just take slightly reduced 2015 scheme too which is what I did.

The OPs colleague should definitely take their 1995 scheme pension as there is no benefit to not taking it...it's money lost.

Does he have pension in the 1995 scheme? He should take this or will be losing money.

I wouldn't say it's rude. My mum is retired already, she's not 60 until later this summer and my dad retired at Christmas at just turned 63.

He just needed to answer that he has no plans to

My Dad had similar with a local council pension. He had to officially retire at 65 to get his final salary based pension, but re-joined on a new, part time, contract until his final retirement a year later. If he'd stayed on, his final salary pension would have been based on his part time salary.

So, even if someone takes their full NHS old pension at 60 (or 55), I imagine they can carry on working, though they'll have to just start on a new style contract.

Retirement age is a hugely personal thing. People retire when either their finances allow or when they just want to stop. It's definitely up there with things like "how old are you?" and "What's your salary" in respect of awkward things people don't really ask!

We have someone in our office that's looking to take retirement at 55, while someone else is still working here at 74. They both have had similar earnings over the years, in fact the 74 year old has a few million in his pension fund. He just enjoys it. He's taken a down-stepped role to make his life easier, but is still a very valuable member of the team. If someone had asked him 14 years ago of his retirement plans I think he'd have looked at them like they had 2 heads!

Oh, and the types of contracts where you were required to retire at a certain age were banned due to being ageist, so there's no such thing as having to retire any more.

I don't believe you could be forced to give up your job at 60 as that would be age discrimination. Wouldn't be unlawful to compel you to take your final salary scheme benefits at 60 or lose them but nothing to stop you carrying on working and paying into the new scheme.

Oh maybe I should have read to the end of the thread before posting that!

When I was a mental health nurse a lot of my colleagues had mental health officer status which allowed them to retire at 55 ,their pensions doubled up after 20 years ,so as long as they had 30 years of pension contributions they could retire on a full forty year pension at 55,this was phased out about a year or two before i qualified ,so most of those who were able ti retire at 55 will have done so by now.

Why would you retire at 60? Another 7 years to go.

This.

It is akin to asking a newly married woman when she plans on having children….

Because in the NHS if you have a lot of years in the 1995 pension scheme you may have enough to retire on at 60.

I've never been in an NHS team where it wasn't completely normal to talk about retirement and whether you could or couldn't at 60.

Am now thinking clearly I've always been with burnt out people as we are spending our time dreaming of hitting 60 and cutting down or getting out.