You own your NHS dental practice, you would hate to leave your wonderful patients and staff, but you would love to still get your hands on that NHS pension which you have accrued over the years. So how do you achieve this whilst still remaining in practice? Don’t worry, our dental team is here to help.
What exactly is a 24-hour Retirement?
If you are thinking of retiring and claiming your pension benefits but would like to keep working in the NHS, you can do so but will need to take a break in service. This is known as a 24-hour Retirement and it enables dentists who have an NHS pension to receive their pension benefits while also returning to work.
In terms of how long the 24-hour retirement process will take, unfortunately it can be simple by name but complex by nature. There are a plethora of potential issues that must be considered if you are planning to go down this route, but two rules are vital to ensuring the 24-hour retirement process can be completed:
To claim your pension you must:-
- retire from your NHS contract for a minimum period of 24 hours; and
- not work more than 16 hours per week in the first month after the NHS pension becomes payable.
There are a diverse range of issues to bear in mind. A few examples are explored below:
If you have a partner on your NHS contract, this can be a simple process where you temporarily retire from that partnership. However, for sole practitioners, submitting notification to the NHS of your retirement would have the effect of terminating your contract.
If you want to continue to run and own your practice after claiming the pension, steps can be taken to ensure that this does not happen. The appropriate way forward is to add a second name onto your NHS contract, another dentist, who would act as a nominal partner. This allows you to ‘retire’ from the NHS for the obligatory 24-hours, and subsequently allows you to re-join the NHS and claim an entitlement to your pension the next day.
- Obviously, the partner needs to be someone you can trust. It may also be sensible to have a document prepared, to formally stipulate that whilst this partner’s name appears on the NHS contract, the benefit of the goodwill and income will continue to be owned by you.
- From the nominal partner’s perspective, it is worth bearing in mind that although they would have no actual right to any of the money from the NHS in accordance with their agreement with you, they do have obligations to the NHS once they appear on the contract. For example, if the practice runs behind whilst they are a partner, they are responsible (together with you) for clawback payments. If this is a significant risk, this partner may wish to ensure that their name is removed from the contract as soon as your name has been re-added to the contract.
The CQC is another factor to consider in this process. NHS England is likely to look to ensure that the partnership only starts once an application has been processed for CQC registration in the joint names of yourself and your proposed partner.
- Once a CQC application has been processed, notice can be submitted to the NHS to add the second name to the contract and a date will then be set for your 24-hour retirement. Once this date is known, you can submit the ‘NHS BSA Pensions- Retirement Benefits Claim Form’ (AW8) to the Business Services Authority.
Following the 24-hour retirement, any changes that have been made to your NHS contract and CQC registration can be reversed. Your NHS contract can be returned to your sole name and you can re-apply as an individual for CQC registration.
However, for a number of beneficial reasons, you may wish to consider retaining the assistance of your nominal partner for a little longer.
- For example, timescales for termination of a GDS contract upon the death of a sole practitioner are short and can only be extended at the sole discretion of NHS England. This puts an added and potentially avoidable stress on your family and executors, at an already stressful time.
- Leaving a second nominal partner on your GDS contract would ensure that the NHS contract survives in their name following completion. In the event of your death, it would give your executors and family flexibility, giving them more time to sell on or possibly choose to continue running the practice.
Brabners have a specialist Healthcare Team who would be delighted to assist with liaising with NHS England on your behalf; compliance with CQC rules; advising on the various timescales and notices involved and drafting any required documents. We can ensure that your 24-hour retirement runs smoothly and your NHS contract remains protected throughout, so you can focus on running your practice.
Now all you need to do is find that trusted dentist friend and give us a call.
