What do you think the average NHS pension should be?

Simple enough question.

What’s the national average wage – £27k ish?

.

66.66% of their final salary like the rest of folks whom are on a final salary scheme.

How about the same amount as it said on the contract on the day the individual signed it?

Come on – play the game. Give it a figure.

Excellent.

I couldn’t really care less…They should get what they deserve for a working lifetime of looking after people

What’s the national average wage – £27k ish

depends on what you think an average is.

Well said Houns and Imnotverygood.

imnotverygood – Member
How about the same amount as it said on the contract on the day the individual signed it?

Thats a fair comment

£12,000 seems far, if they don’t like it join the army

66.66% of their final salary like the rest of folks whom are on a final salary scheme.

Why should a doctor get more to live on after retirement than a nurse?

How about a doctor sacrifices some of their pension, so more can go to a (poorly paid) nurse?

from each according to his ability, to each according to his need

I think I should get, as said above, what I signed up to when I began. Currently they are canvassing to see if we want to change to the new scheme or stick with the old one – for some reason I can’t help but feel that they are unlikely be trying to get me onto something that is going to benefit me more, maybe I’m just naturally suspicious?

if they don’t like it join the army

I would rather they didn’t. A huge army and no NHS seems a tad pointless.

Zulu-eleven I’m a nurse, relatively please with my lot, if I wanted the rewards that come with the seemingly endless commitment and pressure associated with being a medic maybe I should have trained as one instead of expecting somebody else to sacrifice what they accrued through their hard work? just an idea?

There are that many variables…, its impossible to say.

But I’ll bite – How about, a value that can be afforded by the taxpayers at the time its paid out?

FYIW Most people don’t realise that the amount of state pension you receive is based upon the number of NI qualifying years you’ve accrued.

According to an article I was reading in a physio union magazine the average NHS pension is £7500, dropping to an average of £4000 for females.

Northshore – so, you’re happy for hospital porters and cleaners to get a pittance of a pension, because “I’m alright Jack”

if they wanted a better pension, they should have worked harder and got a better job I suppose?

£8.76 plus a Ginsters pastie per week…

In serious reply to the question RE Doctors and Nurses – possibly because they are a different job, just like prime-minister is a different job to his Secretary, and just like and astronaut is a different job to a bank manager.
Should everyone get paid the same pension? (I know NHS pensions are different to state etc, but a medic will contribute more to the pension fund simply because the salary is more).
In fact – I don’t really understand why the question was asked – could you elaborate more? (this isn’t being facetious BTW)

DrP

66.66% of their final salary like the rest of folks whom are on a final salary scheme.

It’s not that much. On the old NHS scheme, the maximum is 40/80 final salary; on the current one it’s 30/60 of average salary. I appreciate this is still a pretty good deal.

According to an article I was reading in a physio union magazine the average NHS pension is £7500, dropping to an average of £4000 for females.

This is probably true. There are a lot of poorly paid people in the NHS (a lot of the non-clinical staff are not well paid) and you need a lot of service to accrue maximum benefit. In times past, women on mat leave would also have a break in pension contribs which would lower the final benefit.

Northshore – so, you’re happy for hospital porters and cleaners to get a pittance of a pension, because “I’m alright Jack”

Z11 – I think you’re trolling to be honest, but if you want a technically correct answer, due to the wonders of PFI & outsourcing, most porters and cleaners are not NHS employees so are not eligible for an NHS pension.

Andy

DrP – The article I read suggested that the public’s opinion on what the average NHS pension should be was £17088, whereas in reality the average NHS pension is £7500.

BTW – I think that people should get exactly the pension they signed up for when they started. Pay more in – get more out seems fair to me.

Should everyone get paid the same pension?

Its a fair question – we don’t set peoples benefit rates according to “the lifestyle they’ve become accustomed to” or “how much tax they’ve paid into the pot”

should unemployed teachers get higher benefit rates than unemployed street sweepers?

There are people at the bottom of the pile who have paid into pensions for years, and ended up with a pension below the benefit rate… they would have been better not bothering.

Maybe if there was a loading system, where the bottom of the pile got a better percentage of their final salary than the top of the pile?

My uncertainty was aimed at Zulu-eleven, not you SBZ (I’ve the same problem as Michael Caine – too many Zulu’s…)

DrP

Sorry just checked and can’t see where I said that, care to quote me for my reference? Equally so I know of many porters or care assistant who have undergone nurse training and now access the better pension levels proportional to their contribution to the scheme, so yes. Don’t know what your point is?
How exactly do you apportion how much of somebody else’s earnings should be sacrificed to make somebody else’s lot better? Where do we draw the line then? Do I have to sacrifice some of my pension for the security guard patrolling the car park and he some of his for the guy in McDonalds who served him his breakfast?
What incentive does that leave for people to want to progress? It’s all right that medic who underwent 10-15 years training will support me in my retirement so I will just sit on my arse and not bother?

According to an article I was reading in a physio union magazine the average NHS pension is £7500, dropping to an average of £4000 for females.

Presumably affected by length of service, date of drawing down the pension, and early retirement cases.
In isolation those numbers are pretty meaningless.

£12,000 seems far, if they don’t like it join the army

Whatever they contracted for seems fair, if the Army don’t like theirs they can join the NHS.

In my experience, plenty of the army do join the NHS…
EDIT; and Navy, Marines, RAF…

And yes, I think sticking to the contract that was agreed by both parties would be the fairest route.

Presumably affected by length of service, date of drawing down the pension, and early retirement cases.
In isolation those numbers are pretty meaningless.

So is Mornington Cresecent, but that doesnt stop it appearing on here.

I’ve actually just had my pension forecast, which I can go and get if anyone is interested…

Crikey – yours accurate? have heard of quite a few peoples being wrong and needed them adjusting – wrong start dates, length of service etc. Mine is poor example as worked bank for few years and currently part time until January.

All pensions should be money purchase.

The article I read suggested that the public’s opinion on what the average NHS pension should be was £17088, whereas in reality the average NHS pension is £7500.

So, the public don’t understand what average means (pardon the pun), and you don’t want to pay any attention to what ‘the public’ thinks unless you know exactly what question the public was being asked.

I’m lost as to why people are thinking that the public dont understand averages. Can someone please explain it to me.

Seems accurate..

I could retire at 55; this was a ‘special class’ offer for those of us who started before a certain time.

If I did; I currently get top of band 6, which is £34,000 or so.

I would have worked for 32 and a half years.

My annual pension would be £14,782.

My lump sum would be £44,700.

If I work until I’m 60, which is 37 and a half years:

My annual pension would be £17,500.

My lump sum would be £52,500.

Nice, glad accurate as say heard of few wrong ones. Unfortunately I’m only 12 years in at moment so I’m sure the pension will have changed umpteen times by time I’m ready for disposing of 🙂

I could retire at 55; this was a ‘special class’ offer for those of us who started before a certain time.

(Goes off to look it up on NHSPA website) Must be – for those of us in the 1995 section the normal retirement age is 60.

Andy

I’m lost as to why people are thinking that the public dont understand averages. Can someone please explain it to me.

Well what information could they have been given to be able to give an answer – how do they now how many years each employee has paid in – with an average or a mean or a median – which many people can’t distinguish between, to a greater or less extent you’d need to be factoring both the longest serving, highest earning employees and the lowest paid and shortest serving employees. Someone could have left the service early in their career, they’d still be due some pension when they retire. They’d need to know the relative proportions of all these high and low earners, long and short servers to be able to have even the vaguest stab at what an average. So what the public have done is pluck a nice sounding figure from the air.

To illustrate – I’ll have a local authority pension of a few pence when I retire, but I only worked for a LA in a junior position for a 2 year period over a decade ago. But you’d need to factor that tiny pension – and the tiny pensions of all the thousands of people who’ve had brief carreers in a sector alongside the smaller number of people who’ve had life-long jobs in LAs

So presented with the question – if we know what the question is – the honest answer for Joe Public to give is “I can’t answer that”

The job your average staff nurse does is a job very few of us could or would even choose to do.
Vomit/urine/faeces/HIV/TB and a host of other contageous/infectious diseases along with mentally ill or just mental patients to deal with..

It would seem people on here and governments take nurses for granted.