Medical Retirement

jay2000

I have been employed by the local authority for 19 years and I have been off work sick for 6 months, initially with work related stress and depression. I am a Paraplegic (T4) having severed my spine 25 years ago, I therefore have many physical health problems. The mental strain has had a detrimental effect physically on my health and I do not feel that I will ever be able to return to my job. I am now seriously having to consider applying for medical retirement, and although I am 44, young in able bodied land, my body is probably closer to 64 in age terms.

Can you tell me how easy or how difficult this process is, do they make it difficult to get retired medically or is the paraplegia on it's own considered a good enough reason??

I will not qualify for any means tested benefits so I am concerned about the financial implications, I am about to go onto half pay but as I see no prospect of returning to work do I have to wait until my 6 months half pay is exhausted before I would be considered for medical retiral? Can I ask to be medically retired or does my my employer have to initiate this procedure? - what procedures will I have to go through and how long does it take? What sort of areas does the Occ Health look at? Does anyone know how the pension scheme works and on what grounds could they refuse to medically retire me? I am sorry if this is a bit long winded but nobody seems to have any info on these situations and management and personnel are useless.

Thanks

seven-day-weekend

TBH, I think it's extremely difficult to get medical retirement these days as the Local Authorities can't afford to pay your pension for an extra 20 years.

I think the best place to start is with your Human Resources department and make some enquiries, also enquire with Occupational Health, and ask the Union to help,

Good luck.

CAE

Jay 2000

Sorry to hear about your health problems. Here is a link to the LGPS website, with very brief details of the ill health retirement provisions.

http://www.lgps.org.uk/lge/core/page.do?pageId=102182

There have been drastic changes to ill health retirement under the new Regs from 1st April, and you will see there are three tiers of ill health retirement, with varying enhancements. There is still guidance being issued to employers etc. on retirement on ill health grounds under the new Regs, as there is currently still some protection under the old regulations for retirements which take place before 1st October. There is also some protection for members aged 45 or over, but as you are 44 this will not apply.

All the while you are employed you are covered under the scheme, and your benefits are not affected by the fact that you are on half pay. Your first point of call should be to your manager / HR dept, who should already be in contact with you on a regular basis anyway. The matter should then be referred to occupational health, who will certify (or otherwise) which tier of ill health retirement should apply. You should under no circumstances resign, even if you feel you cannot carry on working until a decision has been made concerning any possible ill health retirement.

If the Occupational health doctor certifies that you are eligible for ill health retirement, the employer has no choice, even if the cost is great, so no worry on that score.

I guess your paraplegia alone is not grounds for ill health retirement as you have been doing the job for 19 years. However the fact that your physical health has deteriorated may be grounds of course. Work related stress and depression on their own, however debilitating, is not normally seen as grounds for ill health retirement.

Management and Personnel may be useless, but it is their responsibility to take this forward.

I hope this is helpful to you.

Not4coping

I'm sorry to hear of your problems.

I applied for ill health retirement in 2005 ... and am still doing battle with my former employer (london borough). The story is long and VERY painful.

Comment made previously by CAE about the employer having no choice is incorrect .... it is the employer's decsision and they MUST take other things into consideration ... and will ... even totally irrelevant things.

My view is that there is a huge 'work-related stress' bubble about to burst and that the government know about it. They are doing everything they possibly can to stop people getting ill-health retirement.

I'd be happy to discuss this one-to-one if you're interested.

Oblivion

Not4coping wrote: »

They are doing everything they possibly can to stop people getting ill-health retirement.

Yes, I'm afraid that is perfectly true.

I also went through a local government ill-health request and failed. My health had deteriorated to the point where I simply couldn't continue to hold down my senior managerial role and cope with my very stressful physical illness at the same time.

My doctor, and more importantly my hospital consultant, both wrote to the council making the case that I was permanently unfit for work. I was called for interview by the 'council's visiting doctor' who made it very clear with his opening statement that he was there to ensure that no ill-health retirements succeeded. He even gleefully waived the case file of some other poor soul under my nose and proudly announced that so far he had managed to hold this one up for nearly three years!

I came away from that interview totally devastated, and it's still something that haunts me to this day. My own doctor was disgusted and said there was no way he was letting me back to work, and he'd continue writing sick notes for ever if necessary. This was all well and good, but not much use to me when the half-pay ran out. Stalemate!

Fortunately, I did find a way out because the department was overdue for a reorganisation and they wanted to prune the staff numbers to save money. I was only a few months short of the (then) maximum 40 qualifying years for a full pension, but still had two years to run until retirement age. So I wrote to the council requesting an early retirement on the grounds of efficiency of the service, and much to my relief they caved in and let me go two years early.

The whole nasty process has left a bad taste in my mouth, and I think it's time some councils, and indeed other employers, were taken to the court of human rights over their failures to deal sypathetically with ill-health cases. HR departments are full of BS when it comes to describing their commitment towards staff, how staff are the most valued resource etc, but as soon as you become a liability, they don't want to know.

Unfortunately, the means to my eventual success is not really appropriate to the OP in view of not having the qualifying years. I do wish the OP well with your claim, and I hope you'll keep us posted with progress or lack of it.

Dave.

MikeJones_2

As a general comment to this thread, ill health forms the biggest pile in the number of complaints dealt with by the Pensions Ombudsman (the link is to the 'Determinations Page' where you can search for 'ill health' cases).

I'd recommend to anyone applying for ill health benefits through their pension scheme to read through some of the cases (the more the better) which will give you a flavour of some of the typical problems, how complaints are dealt with, and how determinations are arrrived at.

Always remember that an employer/board of trustees must follow what is in the Scheme Rules. Problems arise where 'discretion' comes into play and opinions can and often do vary considerably.

My sympathies to those of you suffering ill health and I hope the link provides you with some useful guidance.

Mike Jones

I work in the field of Pension Education and Pension Guidance in the UK. I am a current member of the Specialist Pensions Forum as well as being a Voluntary Adviser for The Pensions Advisory Service. I work with scheme members, employers, trustees, scheme administrators and advisers on most things to do with employer sponsored pension schemes. The views expressed by me in this thread are my personal opinions. You should seek professional advice from an appropriately experienced and qualified adviser. I am not an IFA.

Not4coping

jay2000 wrote: »

I have been employed by the local authority for 19 years and I have been off work sick for 6 months, initially with work related stress and depression.

Can you tell me how easy or how difficult this process is, do they make it difficult to get retired medically or is the paraplegia on it's own considered a good enough reason??


With regard to the 'process', have you been given details by your HR dept?

Have you been given the authority's sickness absence management policy/procedure (if they have any)? At some point these should automatically (via OH) included a consideration of whether you might be eligible for ill-health retirement, but not before considering 'redeployment' within the authority.

Have 'reasonable adjustments' (which should include redeployment) been considered by management?

Just as we are forced to comply with 'process', so are employers. You need to be aware of what they must do, to safeguard your interests. I'm sorry to say that they don't tend to make this readily available, so you'll probably have to search it out.

Good luck and let us know how you're doing.

Not4coping

[quote=MikeJones

Always remember that an employer/board of trustees must follow what is in the Scheme Rules. Problems arise where 'discretion' comes into play and opinions can and often do vary considerably.


With regard to applications thyrough the LGPS, those rules (or rather statutory regulations) require the Scheme employer to have in place a two-stage Internal Dispute Resolution Procedure. Before getting anywhere near the Pensions Ombudsman's office (where impartiality cannot, in my experience, be guaranteed) you will need to show that you have attempted to settle locally any argument about decisions (made by the Scheme employer) regarding your pension rights. Make sure you have a copy of the Scheme employer's IDRP.


If you still disagree with the employer's reconsidered decisions, you should be directed to the Pensions Advisory Service ...

All these 'processes' have timescales attached, so the important thing is, if you consider that you meet the LGPS criteria for ill-health retirement, make an application to the Scheme employer. The application should be in writing, and be acknowledged by the employer's pension team.