nhs pension payments

[feefaa]

Most of my pension is in the old scheme which allows me to retire at 60, with the rest in the 2015 one. I'll complete 33 years soon. I need to cut my hours on health grounds (I'd been having issues with b.p/ chest pain and just found out I have a defect in heart). I'm too scared to get further investigations eg, catheter and dr said ok to monitor in meantime.
I pay in 9.5% contribution. Say I pay in £100 each month working 4 days a week but want to drop to 2 days, is it possible to keep paying the £100 monthly (which would be higher than the standard 9.5%), to maintain my future pension benefits? I think I heard, years ago, that you can but need to contact the pension team - however I don't know if I imagined that!
I hope someone can help with this question.

You could increase your payments under the old scheme so would imagine you can under the new one but obviously I don't know for certain. Would there be details on the NHS Pension website?

Contact your pension administrator to be very sure!!

Thankyou for the replies. Management gets 'upset' when we talk about reducing hours so was attempting to find out without speaking to anyone related to nhs first. I'll check on the nhs pension website also.

Money Saving Expert has a very good pensions Forum with experts on the NHS schemes - maybe post on there too?

I believe you can make AVC's - additional voluntary contributions. Have a look on the NHS Pensions website but it would also probably be worth getting some independent financial advice from someone who is familiar with the NHS Pension Scheme.

Is the olds scheme not based on final salary. If it is you need to be careful.

No. You can't top it up with extra payments.
The Nhs pension number provides really great advice.

The final salary part is based on the full time salary for your role. It won’t be affected at all by you reducing your hours. If you worked for 28 years under the old scheme, your pension will be 28/80ths of the full time salary for your band, ie about 1/3. Even if you go down to 1 day a week it will still pay that.

The pension is worked out on final full time salary, but the accrued years slow down if you're part time, so if you're half time you accrue 6 months for every year you work. They work it out by the day...

@Walkacrossthesand Yes, but she won’t be accruing any more years for the part that’s in the old final salary scheme as that’s closed now. And the part that’s in the new scheme is worked out on your salary for each year you work, so it’s true that a half-timer will only accrue at half the rate of a full timer.

A recent legal case - McCloud Judgement means you may get a choice as to whether to have all contributions up to April 22 entered into the 1995 scheme upon retirement or left in the later 2015 scheme.

www.nhsemployers.org/articles/mccloud-judgement

I'm not sure if you want to retire and return - I am in the 1995 scheme only and can continue in my post part time but won't rejoin the pension scheme.