Re: Ill health retirement at age 45

sunflower65

Hi there,

My employers are currently in the process of medically retiring me, i have been diagnosed with Huntington's Disease, inherited from my father.
I have a prison service classic pension with just over seven years service to date. What do you think the outcome will be, are they likely to turn me down on ill health retirement grounds, alhough my consultant has written a letter to support my retirement, and also i have arthritis in both hands so find any physical actvities painful. I am frightened they will make me wait for my pension, and with a degenerative brain disorder how can i guarantee i will make it to retirement age. I have no other money to speak of only this pension. I would appreciate some advise on what is likely to happen, so i am prepared.

Thanks Sunflower65

SnowMan

It's a difficult one.

The rules of the scheme (I don't know much about that scheme other than that it is probably something to do with the Civil Service final salary scheme?) will determine what criteria you will need to meet to qualify (for example one criteria is not being able to carry out your normal duties another more onerous criteria would be not being able to carry out any job).

The scheme rules will also determine who makes the decision on whether you meet this test, it could be the trustees of the scheme or it could be the company for example.

The difficulty is this decision is very subjective. It is not simply a case of you either meeting a test or not, but more a case that the scheme or whoever have to show that they have looked at all the evidence and acted reasonably in assessing the evidence against the rules and making their decision. That can make it more difficult to challenge.

At this stage other than making sure that the decision makers have access to all the medical information to support your retirement (and you already seem to have done that) it is difficult to see what more you can do at this stage.

There is a much fuller explanation of the issues on The Pensions Advisory Service (TPAS) website at

http://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/dealing-with-complaints/ill-health-retirement

It may also be worth ringing TPAS for some advice on their helpline.


Edit: not sure if it is the right scheme but the PCSPS classic scheme booklet seems to say

"ILL HEALTH RETIREMENT

If the classic scheme medical adviser confirms that your ill health permanently prevents you from carrying out the duties of your grade, your employer may decide you can retire early and take your pension and lump sum immediately."

sunflower65

Thanks Snowman for the info, i really appreciate that. :)x