Pension Awareness Week is all about helping to raise awareness of the importance of pensions. Throughout the week we’ll be sharing information on the NHS Pension Scheme, what it is and why it’s so valuable.
Don’t lose track of your pension
It’s important you keep your personal details up to date with your employer.
If you’re not currently employed by the NHS, contact us to update your details: Contact NHS Pensions - members | NHSBSA
Changes to public service pensions
In 2015 the government made changes to most public service pension schemes, including the NHS Pension Scheme. These reforms didn’t apply to members closest to retirement, who stayed in their legacy schemes with ‘transitional protection’.
This means that members with full protection didn’t have to move to the reformed 2015 Scheme at all, and members with tapered protection could stay in their existing scheme for longer than members without transitional protection.
The Court of Appeal later found that this discriminated against younger members. The government is removing this age discrimination from public service pension schemes where transitional protection was introduced.
Only some members will be affected by the changes to public service pensions.
You’re affected if you joined a public service pension scheme on or before 31 March 2012 and:
- you were a member of the scheme on or after 1 April 2015
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or you left service after 31 March 2012 but returned within 5 years
If you joined a public service pension scheme after the 31 March 2012, you are not affected. The remedy period refers to the timeframe the discrimination could have applied, which is between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022.
If you're affected, you'll be asked if you would like to receive legacy scheme or reform scheme pension benefits for your membership between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022. This is called the remedy period.
We're aiming to start offering members this choice on retirement from April 2024. If you're retiring before this date, we'll contact you and ask you to make your choice later. We’ll provide you with information at the time to help you make your decision.
Asking you to make this choice when you retire means you’ll know exactly what you’re entitled to under each option. This will make it easier to decide what’s best for you.
Your service for the remedy period will be automatically moved into your legacy scheme until you’ve made your choice.
By 1 October 2023, any continuous service you have between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022 will be placed into your legacy scheme. In the NHS this is the 1995/2008 Scheme. This is called rollback.
To keep you up to date, we’ll update our dedicated web hub: Changes to public service pensions | NHSBSA
For now, all our processes remain the same and there’s nothing you need to do. We’ll contact all affected members directly when action needs to be taken.