Thousands of doctors take part in pensions consultation

The BMA says thousands of doctors have registered their response to the Department of Health’s consultation on plans to increase pension contribution rates from April.

The DH is consulting on the second of its annual increases to NHS pension contributions, with doctors seeing deductions of up to 13.3% of their pay from this April.

The BMA said it had logged more than 2,500 responses to the DH consultation onthis year’s increases and that is equated to about 2,000 responses from individual doctors.

A BMA spokesperson said: ‘Some doctors will have submitted responses directly to the DH but that number will be fairly low. We are encouraging people to use a pro-forma text on our website.’

To take part in the consultation, which runs until 12 February, go to http://bma.org.uk/working-for-change/negotiating-for-the-profession/industrial-action-pensions/pension-contributions or http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/11/nhs-pension-regs/