NHS Pension amid NHS fears

[Monstermoomin]

Just wondering if anyone has any info on how safe our NHS pensions are should the government completely ruin the NHS and it no longer exists?

Would it all just disappear?

How can anyone answer this?

I imagine you'd be treated the same way as anyone else who paid into a defined benefit pension from a defunct employer - you'd get access to the Pension Protection Fund

Public sector schemes aren’t covered by the Pension Protection Fund.

The NHS Pension Scheme also doesn’t have a fund behind it. Essentially, those currently paying into it are paying the pensions of those already retired.

What you have is a promise to be paid a certain amount of pension when you retire, based on your salary and length of service. As public service pension schemes are set up under legislation (Acts and Statutory Instruments) this means it’s basically a promise from the Government. So your pension is as safe as Government is (I don’t mean the people in Government, which obviously change regularly, I mean the overall concept of Government).

If the NHS ceases to exist there would be no people paying in so Government would have to use taxpayers’ money to fulfil the existing pension promises.

What Chessie said.

Essentially if you are in the NHSPS the security of your pension depends on the ability of the UK government to pay it.

I didn't realise that. Although it seems like madness not to have an actual pension fund...that being said it probably would have been raided by the Tories over the years so probably for the best that it's just a promise of payment from existing coffers.

Yeah this was what I was worried about as I'm aware the deductions I currently pay are paying the pension for those currently retired. Just a bit worrying given I've been paying in for nearly 7 years (I know nothing in the grand scheme of things) but it's quite a while off my actually retiring!