GP on pension of £140,000 a year... while 20 others draw more than £100,000 each

By Sophie Borland
Last updated at 7:55 AM on 20th January 2012



Bank balances in rude health: Many GPs retire on an annual pension of £46,600
Bank balances in rude health: Many GPs retire on an annual pension of £46,600
A GP has retired on a pension of nearly £140,000 a year in a package worth more than £4million.
He is one of 20 family doctors with annual pensions of £100,000 or more, according to figures released under a freedom of information request.
This week the British Medical Association threatened to take industrial action in protest at plans to make doctors retire later and contribute more to their pensions.
But figures obtained by the Mail reveal that the pensions of GPs are among the most generous in the country.
The average male family doctor retiring at 60 receives an annual pension of £46,600 – compared with a public sector average of £7,541.
Two thirds of private sector workers do not even have a pension and the average is just £1,400 a year.
Doctors’ pensions will rise considerably in future thanks to the huge increase in average salaries on the back of a notoriously generous contract struck in 2004.
A doctor aged 24 today can look forward to a pension of £70,000 a year from the age of 68.
The former GP with the highest current pension received £137,159 last year, as part of a pension pot that would have cost £4.16million to buy privately. He will receive £144,291 a year from April, as the payments rise in line with inflation. That means in retirement he will be picking up the gross average earnings of six private-sector workers



Doctors' leader Hamish Meldrum gets a £70,000 top-up
According to the freedom of information release, another family doctor receives an annual retirement sum of £135,230 as part of a pot that is also valued at £4.1million.
The average pay of GPs stands at just under £106,000 although some earn as much as £770,000 a year.
Their pensions are based on their average earnings throughout their careers – not their final salaries, as with most other NHS workers including consultants.
But the Government wants to change the pension schemes of all doctors so that they contribute more from their salaries into the pots – and retire later.
On Wednesday the BMA officially rejected these plans and threatened to take industrial action.
This could include an all-out strike or only seeing patients in emergency or refusing to carry out overtime. The association will hold an emergency meeting next month to decide on what action to take – provided the Government does not back down on its pension reforms.
The Mail obtained figures for annual pension payments to retired GPs from the NHS Business Service Authority. We then asked Hargreaves Lansdown, the financial service firm, to provide an estimate of the value of these pension pots.
A BMA spokesman said: ‘The vast majority of doctors will not receive pensions anywhere near this level.
‘Over the next five years, the NHS pension scheme will actually provide a positive cashflow to the Treasury of over £10billion.’