Ill health retirement

tweedy007

Good morning everyone,
It looks likely that I will be retired by my school this year due to continued ill health.
I've been off sick for the whole of the last academic year after a brain virus and post viral fatigue.
Could anyone help with what benefits I might receive please?
Would I be able to retrain for another less stressful career?

Many thanks
Paul

pmlindyloo

The first thing to do is to find out whether you are going to get an ill health retirement pension first as this will affect any benefits that you receive.

See here:

https://www.teacherspensions.co.uk/employers/employer-guide/member-management/types-of-retirement/ill-health.aspx

Your union should be able to help you with this.

The benefit for people who are unfit for work is Employment Support Allowance. If you are entitled to contribution based ESA (based on NI contributions during the last two tax years) then any pension over £85 a week will affect the benefit. However, any savings/capital/earnings from a partner will not have any affect.

If you do not qualify for this then you may be eligible for income based ESA. But this is means tested and the whole of your pension would be counted as income plus any savings/capital/income from spouse. You need a fit note from your doctor to claim for ESA.

There are other benefits depending on your circumstances - partner/children/rent/mortgage etc so we would need more details.

But, you need to get your teacher's benefits sorted first.

Horseunderwater

Does your GP /consultant think that you could work say part time if you had no deadlines to meet etc. All jobs can be stressful, it's how you handle it that's important. If the answer is yes then I'd go down the ESA route as you can get help to retrain etc without the pressures of signing on each week/fortnight.