Tory leadership front-runner Liz Truss vows to tackle Covid hospital backlog and surging waiting lists by stopping exodus of doctors from NHS through overhauling pension rules
- The Tory leadership frontrunner wants to dissuade doctors from retiring early
- One in ten GPs are set to retire in the next 18 months because of pension rules
- Ms Truss is considering changing the rules surrounding lifetime pension caps
Tory leadership front-runner Liz Truss could make changes to pensions for doctors in an effort to dissuade them from leaving the NHS.
Ms Truss has promised to try and tackle mammoth waiting lists caused by a backlog from the Covid pandemic.
In order to do this she will, in part, focus on persuading doctors who are nearing retirement age to stay in the health service and try and get recently retired colleagues to come back
The Telegraph reports the Prime Ministerial hopeful is going to overhaul how the lifetime pension cap applies to doctors and consultants.
It comes as one in ten GPs and consultants are set to leave in the next 18 months as they are penalised for hitting the cap.
Liz Truss (pictured) is looking at changing tax rules surrounding lifetime pension caps to stop dissuade doctors from leaving the NHS
One in ten consultants and GPs is expected to retire in the next 18 months due to pension rules (stock image)
Last month the House of Commons health and social care committee said the NHS pension scheme should be changed in a bid to prevent staff feeling like they should leave.
Under NHS rules senior staff must pay in 14.5% of their wages into their pensions – in the draft plans GPs could opt out of paying into their pensions entirely.
According to the paper, Ms Truss will think about scrapping taxes that doctors currently pay after they have reached their lifetime limit of £1,073,100 or their annual allowance.
It is thought she could also tweak rules that impact doctors who have retired returning to the NHS.
At the moment returning doctors are not allowed to earn more money from their combined salary and pension than they would if they were just working full-time.
One doctor said the exodus of ‘senior, highly experienced’ medics from the NHS can be stopped by making the changes to the pension scheme.
Dr Brian Guttridge, chairman of the British Medical Association’s (BMA) retired members committee, said: ‘We have long called for the end of punitive pension taxation rules that mean for far too many it simply doesn’t pay to stay. Putting this right would be an important step forward.’
The move would be seen as part of the plan to tackle ballooning waiting lists in the NHS, as staff seek to clear the backlog caused by the Covid pandemic.
The NHS waiting list has soared to a record 6.6million with more than 330,000 people waiting over a year for treatment.
The crisis has seen a surge in the number of people self-funding their medical treatment, with 69,000 forced to pay privately in the last quarter of last year – a surge of more than a third.
Last week it was reported that the number of people on cardiac waiting lists has surged every month for two years, with services remaining ‘extremely disrupted’.
Almost half a million have missed out on heart treatment or diagnostic tests since January 2020, NHS figures suggest.
The British Heart Foundation (BHF) said people are already dying ‘needlessly’ on waiting lists and warned more will perish if the ‘cardiac crisis’ is allowed to continue.
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