Can she be retired off?

[Guest]

Hi, My long term friend is a nurse with the NHS working with adult learning difficulties patients.

She has been with the NHS for 20+ years now and is good at her job. However her husband committed suicide a couple of years ago and although she went back to work certain situations caused her to have a mental breakdown and she has been off work for almost a year now. She has been having mental health consultation weekly, which has been difficult with the current Covid situation, but is making good progress.

However her GP and councillor and the Occupational Health unit do not believe she is fit to return to the job she had with clients. They are now considering retiring her off on health grounds. Is this just wording and they are making her redundant or can they actually force her to retire? This will put her in a financial strain situation and she would like to return to work at some point if she can.

Any thoughts on this situation?

[ULA]

Yes, there is such a thing as ill-health retirement and can often be associated with a pension scheme.

Is your friend a member of the NHS pension scheme? In which case I believe there is possibility for applying for ill-health retirement which considers whether the individual is unable to carry out their current employment duties due to permanent ill-health and whether that is likely to be extended to being unable to undertake regular employment of like duration.

[Manxman]

Yes, there is such a thing as ill-health retirement and can often be associated with a pension scheme.

Is your friend a member of the NHS pension scheme? In which case I believe there is possibility for applying for ill-health retirement which considers whether the individual is unable to carry out their current employment duties due to permanent ill-health and whether that is likely to be extended to being unable to undertake regular employment of like duration.

Getting an ill-health retirement under the NHS superannuation scheme is pretty difficult - you basically have to be so ill that you cannot do any work at all, with no prospect of recovering.

Of course I do not know the OP's friend's precise diagnosis or prognosis, but I'm a bit surprised that there has been any suggestion of ill-health retirement in the stated circumstances. Basically they are saying that she's unlikely to get better.

I would suggest that neither the GP nor the counsellor are in any position to say if the friend qualifies for ill-health retirement. (They might suggest she applies for it, but the final determination as to whether she qualifies will be made by medical experts employed by the pension scheme). The Occupational Health specialists - assuming they are those from the friend's employing NHS trust - are likely to have a much better idea of the friend's chances of getting ill-health retirement then her GP and counsellor.

If the OP's friend is so ill that they qualify for an ill-health retirement, then they probably ought to take it because it's a pretty good deal if you are so ill you can't work. You get the pension early.

Ideally, the friend needs to discuss this with their union rep to fully understand exactly what is being proposed. Ill-health retirements are not common and I'd want to make sure that that is what is being proposed - and not some other less generous way of getting rid of her. (It's still possible to just sack people if they are so ill they can't perform their duties).

Of course, all this assumes the friend is in the NHS Pension Scheme - many nurse are not, unfortunately.


[I'm not an expert in the NHS scheme but I'm a retired NHS manager of 25 years. I would strongly, strongly advise the friend to seek advice from their union. They must make sure they understand exactly what their options are before agreeing to anything]