{"id":120908,"date":"2025-10-14T07:17:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/120908\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T07:17:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:17:11","slug":"thousands-more-nhs-pensioners-using-retire-and-return-after-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/120908\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands more NHS pensioners using ‘retire and return’ after reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\tNHS pensions are generous and reforms to the rules surrounding them have often been used as a tool to aid retention in recent years\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

Thousands of extra NHS staff <\/a>have returned to work post-retirement, after a rule change allowed them to take their pensions and then rejoin their generous pension scheme.<\/p>\n

NHS staff can leave their roles, start taking their pension, and then go back to work under a scheme known as retire and return.<\/p>\n

But even if they returned to work, they could not rejoin the NHS pension scheme until a rule change was implemented in 2023.<\/p>\n

In the year immediately after that change was implemented, 18,725 NHS staff used retire and return, according to data supplied by the NHS Business Services Authority.<\/p>\n

This is the highest figure on record and compares to just 4,697 in 2020\/21.<\/p>\n

Figures dipped slightly in 2024\/25 to 12,597, but the overall trend still suggests that more NHS staff are open to returning to the workforce.<\/p>\n

Graham Crossley, NHS pensions specialist at Quilter, which obtained the data via a freedom of information request, said: \u201cThis data shows just how much appetite there is for flexibility among NHS staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cRetire-and-return and partial retirement are proving vital for retaining experienced clinicians and nurses, but they also add complexity. <\/p>\n

\u201cWithout proper guidance, staff risk making decisions that could affect their long-term financial security. Anyone considering these options should seek expert advice to avoid unintended consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

The figures from Quilter show that nurses and officers \u2013 which include administrative and managerial roles \u2013 make up the majority of NHS staff using retire and return.<\/p>\n

Before 2023, retiring NHS staff could not rejoin the NHS Pension Scheme and instead joined a less generous pension scheme.<\/p>\n

More regular use of retire and return could help Labour deliver on their pledge to cut NHS waiting lists.<\/p>\n

In recent years, governments have tried to use pension policy as a way of retaining experienced staff, particularly in the NHS.<\/p>\n

In 2023, for example, then chancellor, Jeremy Hunt,\u00a0abolished the pensions lifetime allowance<\/a>, a cap on how much people could save into their pensions or the amount of investment growth their pensions portfolio could benefit from before tax charges kicked in.<\/p>\n

That same year also saw the introduction of \u201cpartial retirement,\u201d which allowed experienced NHS staff over the age of 55 to take a combination of\u00a0monthly pension income and an initial tax-free lump sum\u00a0from their pension pot while still working, as long as they reduced their pensionable pay.<\/p>\n

But both partial retirement and retire and return are automatic rights which require the consent of an NHS staff member\u2019s employer. This can be a barrier in some circumstances.<\/p>\n

NHS pensions are run on a defined benefit (DB) system, and are more lucrative than most private sector pensions. Employees build up an entitlement to an annual income in retirement, regardless of how long they live.<\/p>\n

Most private sector pension schemes run on a defined contribution (DC) system, where workers build up a pot and manage this during their retirement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NHS pensions are generous and reforms to the rules surrounding them have often been used as a tool…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[79,18,19,17,1565,2090,234,235,3887],"class_list":{"0":"post-120908","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-nhs","13":"tag-pensions","14":"tag-personal-finance","15":"tag-personalfinance","16":"tag-retirement"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}