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The BMA is urging the government to introduce a tax unregistered top up pension scheme for senior doctors—similar to the one that will be introduced for judges from April1—to stop doctors reducing their hours or retiring early.
The government is introducing the judges’ scheme in light of “unprecedented recruitment and retention” problems in the judiciary—the same problems affecting the medical profession, said the BMA.1
One in 10 senior doctors are expected to retire within the next 18 months because punitive pension taxation means it does not make financial sense for them to continue to work, Vishal Sharma, chair of the BMA consultants and BMA pensions committees, told the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee’s workforce inquiry on 22 March.
The biggest reason is the “perverse disincentives” of the current pension arrangements which mean these doctors face “financial penalties simply by going to work,” he said.
People in private sector schemes can...