Three routes are open to a doctor at 55 or over. Partial retirement draws 20 to 100 percent of your accrued NHS pension in up to two drawdowns while you stay in the same post, on condition that pensionable pay falls by at least 10 percent and stays down for 12 months. Retire and return takes all of it, needs a break of at least 24 hours and a new contract, and carries no pay reduction condition. Full retirement stops the accrual. Anything drawn before your normal pension age is reduced permanently.
Which route fits which doctor?
Match the route to the thing you are not willing to give up. If you want the same job at a lower commitment and want to carry on building pension, partial retirement is the route, and the 10 percent pay cut is the price. If you want every penny of your benefits and no cut in sessions, retire and return is the route, and the 24 hour break and a fresh contract are the price. If you want to stop, full retirement is the route, and a permanent reduction is the price where you go before your normal pension age.
The 24 hour break is not a route of its own. It is a condition inside retire and return, and so is the new contract that comes with it.
| Feature | Partial retirement | Retire and return | Full retirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| How much you draw | 20 to 100 percent, up to two drawdowns | All of it | All of it |
| Break in employment | None, and no new contract | At least 24 hours from every NHS post, new contract | You do not come back |
| Pay condition | Pensionable pay down at least 10 percent for 12 months | None | None |
| Further accrual | Yes, in the 2015 Scheme | Yes, in the 2015 Scheme since 1 April 2023 | No |
| Main risk | Abatement above the 90 percent line | Terms and continuity ride on the new contract | Permanent reduction before normal pension age |
| Scheme Pays window | Stays open below 100 percent | Closes | Closes |
What does the 10 percent pay cut actually cost?
It costs a tenth of your pensionable pay for a year, measured against total pensionable pay in the 12 months before your drawdown date, not against your current annual rate. A year containing extra sessions therefore sets a higher baseline to cut from. Take a consultant on £120,000 across 12 programmed activities. One activity is £10,000, the eligibility line sits at £108,000, and dropping to 10.5 activities gives £105,000, a 12.5 percent cut with £3,000 of headroom.
The same £108,000 is the abatement line. Pick up one extra pensionable activity in month seven and pensionable pay is £115,000, £7,000 over the line, and the pension in payment can be stopped. Taken as non-pensionable overtime or opted out bank work, the identical clinical hours leave the figure at £105,000. After 12 months the contract and hours can go back up if both sides want that.
A GP partner has no salary line to dial down. The reduction has to be engineered through the partnership and it shows up on the Type 1 Annual Certificate more than a year later, so a partner can find the reduction failed long after the pension started. Minute the change and put it in the deed before the date, not after. The capital account and cessation position runs on the same timetable.
What does retire and return cost instead?
It costs the employment, and everything that hangs off it. Annual leave, sick pay, pay protection and continuity of service all follow the new contract, because the old one has ended. The Department of Health and Social Care's expectation, recorded in the November 2025 NHS Employers guidance, is that employers re-employ staff on the same terms and do not insist on a longer break than 24 hours, but that is an expectation and not an entitlement. Get the terms in writing before you resign.
What it buys is the full benefit, immediately, with no cut in sessions and no 90 percent line to watch. For a doctor with a decade of work left it also buys further 2015 Scheme accrual, which has only been possible for 1995 Section retirees since 1 April 2023.
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What is the tax cost in the year you draw?
Two bills land. The lump sum is free of income tax up to the lump sum allowance of £268,275, and anything above that is taxed at your marginal rate. The pension then sits on top of your NHS pay as taxable income every year, so a doctor who draws and keeps working can move a slice of their earnings into a higher band in the same year the pay cut takes effect. That is the arithmetic partial retirement is often sold without.
The annual allowance is the second bill. It is £60,000 for 2026/27, tapering by £1 for every £2 of adjusted income above £260,000 where threshold income also exceeds £200,000, down to a £10,000 floor, and it measures the growth in your benefits rather than what you paid in. Cutting pensionable pay can drop you back under a taper line or change nothing at all, depending on private income. The annual allowance guide sets out how the input amount is built.
What has to happen before the date, not after?
The Scheme Pays election. No notice can be given once you are actually entitled to all of your benefits, under Finance Act 2004 section 237B(6), so a 100 percent drawdown, retire and return and full retirement all shut the window that a 31 July deadline would otherwise leave open. The Scheme Pays deadlines hold the detail, including the extension where NHSBSA issues a revised statement on or after 2 May.
Taking benefits is also when your McCloud choice between legacy and 2015 terms for 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022 is made, so the remediable pension savings statement figures need to be in front of you when you plan the drawdown. And the normal minimum pension age rises from 55 to 57 on 6 April 2028, which moves any plan built around drawing at 55 or 56 late this decade.
What does a specialist review before you commit?
A specialist reviews the pensionable pay baseline for the 12 months before the date, the 90 percent abatement line and how any extra work will be classified, the income tax on the lump sum against the £268,275 allowance, the annual allowance position across the open years, and the order in which the Scheme Pays election, the McCloud choice and the drawdown are taken. Private income is modelled alongside, because it is never NHS-pensionable and it is often what keeps the taper in play: see private practice tax and NHS income.