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NHS England identifies ‘significant issues’ with GP pension records, claims BMA

NHS England has identified ‘significant issues’ with GP pension records dating back more than a decade, the BMA has claimed.

In a letter sent to GPs yesterday and seen by Pulse, chair of the BMA’s GP Committe Dr Richard Vautrey said NHS England ‘commissioned a report on the accuracy of GP pension records, and have found significant issues with the sample of records they assessed dating back to 2004’. 

He added that although the BMA has requested more information, it is unclear ‘what specifically the issue relates to, what might have caused it or how many GPs might be affected’.

He said: ‘We are now pushing to have an urgent meeting with NHS England to discuss this, given its clear importance.’

Dr Vautrey added: ‘We are extremely concerned about what this might mean for GPs across the country. We are aware that NHS England have commissioned a further piece of work on how to resolve the issue and we hope these plans will be in place in the next few weeks.’

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The letter claimed that NHS England has told the BMA that they will be unable to advise individuals about the pension records issue until this work is done.

There have been ongoing issues relating to GP pensions and wider issues with Primary Care Support England (PCSE), since Capita took responsibility for delivering the services in 2015.

In January of this year, the BMA said it would support practices in taking legal action against Capita, saying the issues, relating to patient record transfers and processing payments, were ‘unacceptable’ and had gone from ‘bad to worse’.

In March the BMA said it had submitted freedom of information requests to NHS England regarding alleged ‘unallocated’ GP pensions money and the following month the BMA said it was seeking legal advice over the annualisation of pensions, claiming the process was ‘unfair’.

Meanwhile, Capita has already come under fire today for forcing GPs to wait months for compensation for delays to their registration on the National Performers List.

An NHS England spokesperson said: ‘NHS England is currently looking into concerns which have been raised surrounding GP pension records dating back to 2004, including a question of whether GPs have been fulfilling their legal requirement to submit annual self-assessment forms. This work is ongoing in conjunction with other relevant agencies.’