Stressed hospital doctors follow GPS out the door to retire early
THE number of hospital doctors opting for early retirement has doubled in the past decade, NHS figures show.
The trend comes alongside a clampdown on pensions, which caps the amount savers can amass without being taxed from £1.8million in 2012 to £1 million.
Doctors blamed stress and said they were increasingly overloaded, with the statistics also showing rising numbers taking their pension early on grounds of ill health.
The research shows the number of hospital doctors claiming their NHS pension on voluntary early retirement grounds increased from 164 in 2007-08 to 397 in 2017-18. The number retiring on ill health grounds rose from 12 to 79 over the same period.
The figures show that in total, 27 per cent of hospital doctors who retired this year did so before pension age – a rise from 14 per cent in 2008. The figures were released to The BMJ by the NHS Business Services Authority in response to a freedom of information request.
Overall, the number of hospital doctors choosing to take their pension rose by a fifth over the period. Meanwhile, the total number working in the NHS rose by 21 per cent.
It follows figures showing a more than tripling in the number of GPS choosing early retirement. The number of GPS claiming their NHS pension on voluntary early retirement grounds increased from 198 in 2007-08 to 721 in 2016-17, while the number retiring on ill health grounds rose from 12 to 63.
Dr Rob Harwood, chairman of the British Medical Association’s consultants committee, said the figures were “concerning but certainly not surprising”. “Given the combined pressures of mounting demand, unmanageable workloads and widespread gaps in rotas, it is to be expected that doctors may ultimately choose to leave the profession early. What is most worrying, however, is the six-fold rise in those retiring early due to ill health.”
John Kell, of The Patients Association, said: “Patients will want to see reassurance in the forthcoming 10-year plan for the NHS that there will be an adequate clinical workforce to care for them in the future.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said there were “nearrecord numbers of NHS doctors”, and that to aid work-life balance, it was expanding flexible working schemes and e-rostering, and was increasing training places by 25 per cent.