NHS Pension lump sum delayed, NHS Pension Agency staff unhelpful

Thrugelmir

benawhile said:

 There is no harm in asking, after all, and some services are working normally. My partner's own ward, for example, a newly dedicated Covid ward, was still only a quarter full when she retired!

Somewhat different to open plan offices that pre Covid-19 employ many hundreds, even thousands of people on site.  Not possible to instantly open new fully equipped offices that conform with both social distancing and health and safety requirements etc. 

zagubov

Brynsam said:

Don't believe all you hear, especially the ubiquitous 'everyone' getting their lump sum on the day they retire. It they are retiring from active service (as opposed to retiring some time after leaving active membership of the scheme/employer) it's hard to see how that could ever happen.

NHS Pensions might, and doubtless should, have managed your expectations better, but right now they are handling their own crises - staff working from home, problems having physical mail safely collected and opened, having to learn new procedures to ensure safety of payments and so on. Yes, it's annoying - but your expectations were never realistic, I fear. In the current climate they are hopelessly optimistic. Nobody is going to 'compensate' you unless the delay becomes exceptionally drawn out - and then only to the extent of a modest amount. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^This!
When I retired almost two years ago I had to wait for my lump sum and there was little or no contact to reassure me it would arrive soon. It's simply not part of the service. I'd have been better off if people had warned me how slow and quiet the pension agency are about sorting you out, and needing to be patient doesn't sound like great or helpful advice but it's the truth.

mollycat

NHS retiree from 2018 with another anecdotal contribution.
Had to wait a few weeks, (honestly can't remember how long exactly) for lump sum.
AFAICR, this was the norm back then in a non "global crisis" crisis.

bettyboo99

Loss of NHS death grant
Can anyone help explain this to me please, its tragically even more important at the moment given number of NHS staff deaths. As you know NHS employees were forced into moving from their old 1995 scheme to the new 2015 pension scheme. With some tapered protection this meant I was forced over in late 2017. As the death grant is only paid in your current scheme this means despite 36y+ yrs service most of my entitlement has been lost. (Presumably because it looks like I only have a few years in new scheme) Whereas my 2018 SPPA statement for old scheme says ‘death grant of 68.5k’ the very next 2019 statement says ‘death grant 27.7k’ Praying don’t need it (obviously!) but how can that be right to instantly lose over half the grant? 

Dox

bettyboo99 said:

Loss of NHS death grant
Can anyone help explain this to me please, its tragically even more important at the moment given number of NHS staff deaths. As you know NHS employees were forced into moving from their old 1995 scheme to the new 2015 pension scheme. With some tapered protection this meant I was forced over in late 2017. As the death grant is only paid in your current scheme this means despite 36y+ yrs service most of my entitlement has been lost. (Presumably because it looks like I only have a few years in new scheme) Whereas my 2018 SPPA statement for old scheme says ‘death grant of 68.5k’ the very next 2019 statement says ‘death grant 27.7k’ Praying don’t need it (obviously!) but how can that be right to instantly lose over half the grant? 

You might want to start your own thread, which might grab the attention of someone who knows all about the NHS scheme. For now, I wonder if the following helps at all? The death grant is related to earnings, not length of scheme membership. In the 2015 scheme, an active contributing member has a death grant based on the higher of:

• 2 x relevant earnings in the last 12 months of pensionable membership
• 2 x revalued pensionable earnings for the scheme year, up to 10 years earlier, with highest revalued pensionable earnings

Hard to see why there is such a drop in the death grant; may just be a mistake?