GP’s husband can’t claim her pension... just because she died on day off
THE family of a locum GP have lost out on £110,000 from an NHS pension scheme because she died on her day off.
The ‘death in service’ benefit would have been paid if mother of two Dr Helen Sanderson, 40, had died just 12 hours earlier.
Now her widower faces having to sell the family home because of the ‘unfair’ legal loophole.
Dr Sanderson was working as a locum when she died suddenly on Christmas Eve last year from a rare form of heart disease.
She had stopped working as a full-time GP to spend more time with daughters Grace, six, and four- year- old Mary. But her widower Carl Sanderson, 50, said she was still working regularly and had work scheduled for four months ahead when she died.
Under current rules, if a locum dies at a time when they are not contracted to work then they are not entitled to the significant ‘death in service’ benefit.
The ‘ loophole’ is well known within the profession and efforts by the British Medical Association to scrap the ‘ridiculous’ regulation have so far been rejected by the Department of Health.
Efforts by Mr Sanderson, a teacher from the Wirral, Merseyside, to appeal against the decision have failed and he has been advised by the BMA he has no hope of a suc- cessful legal challenge. He said pension officials came to his home and told him he would be eligible for the benefit, but that was reversed later in writing.
He said: ‘This over-interpretation of the rules results in a loss
‘Backbone of the NHS’
to me and my family of in excess of £100,000.’
A sympathetic family doctor has now set up an online appeal to raise money for the Sandersons.
Dr Dean Eggitt, who has never met Dr Sanderson, said: ‘Not only have her family had to come to terms with her untimely death at Christmas, now they face losing their family home. For them to have to go through this is ridiculous. It could be any of us. Locum GPs are the backbone of the NHS.’
He said the Government temporarily closed the loophole during the 2009 swine flu crisis when many locums were drafted in to work.
Dr Eggitt added: ‘We know that they can change the law if they want to. It’s absolutely scandalous that they haven’t.’
Dr Richard Fieldhouse, chairman of the National Association of Sessional GPs, said: ‘This is basically putting two fingers up to the bereaved family ... The BMA has to do something about this.’
Both the NHS Pensions Authority and the Department of Health refused to comment on the case.