The NHS Pension Retirement Programme
You cannot plan the future, until you can trust the past.
Annual Allowance analysis and Scheme Pays retirement modelling
Have you received an Annual Allowance tax charge, used Scheme Pays or found pension figures you cannot reconcile? You may be trying to answer two connected questions: “Are these figures right—and what do they mean for my retirement?”
The Retirement Programme is for doctors and other NHS professionals who need detailed pension analysis as part of a wider retirement plan, rather than a one-off answer to a tax question. It brings together pension-record investigation, Annual Allowance analysis and retirement modelling.
What we examine
We cross-check your pension service history, pensionable pay and pension statements, investigating gaps or inconsistencies rather than assuming every figure is correct. We examine the information behind your Annual Allowance position and explore how Scheme Pays affects the retirement benefits you could receive.
What you receive
Depending on the scope agreed with you, the work includes:
A written pension-record investigation report, explaining what the records support, what remains uncertain and which issues need further investigation or correction.
Annual Allowance schedules for the years covered by the work, with an explanation of the figures and any outstanding information.
Retirement comparisons showing estimated Scheme Pays deductions, allowing for previous elections and any future elections included in the modelling, with the assumptions clearly identified.
We work through the findings with you, connecting your Annual Allowance position to the retirement dates and working patterns you are considering. The aim is to make the figures and trade-offs clearer—not to promise a lower tax bill or a larger pension.
Seven Medical provides education, guidance, analysis and modelling—not regulated financial advice. Where specialist tax advice or regulated financial advice is needed, we explain the boundary and signpost you appropriately.
Book a free 30-minute discovery call
Tell us what you are trying to understand and the retirement decisions ahead of you. We will discuss whether the Programme is appropriate. The call introduces our services; it does not include detailed pension analysis or personal financial recommendations.
The numbers you have been given may not be the numbers you get
Your Total Reward Statement carries a caveat. It says the figures are an illustration. They may or may not be accurate.
That caveat exists for a reason.
The NHS Pension Scheme is the largest pension scheme in Europe. It is under-resourced. Experienced staff have left. McCloud has changed how every year of service is valued, and the scheme has openly said its systems cannot yet produce some of the data members are asking for.
Meanwhile, the figures that decide your pension do not start at the scheme. They start with your trust's payroll and pensions officers. If total pensionable pay is calculated wrongly there, it flows through to the scheme, onto your service record, and into every forecast you have ever seen.
This is what we deal with every week:
Service records with missing years, broken continuous service, and gaps where a trust move was never closed off properly
Remediable Pension Savings Statements arriving late, then arriving wrong
Members who were paid the wrong pension, then asked to hand money back
GP records where dynamising and "second bites" have never been reconciled
Complaints that go unanswered for months, then need escalating to get any response at all
None of this is your fault. But all of it lands on you.
The point is simple. You cannot plan the future until you can trust the past.
What People Are Saying
“I want to take my foot off the gas. I don’t want to be forced to keep going.”
“I asked the scheme. The figures came back wrong. Then it disappeared into the ether.”
“I'd retire tomorrow if someone could tell me I can afford it.”
“I definitely don’t want to work until I’m 67.”
“I want to know what it looks like if I stop at 60 - and what it looks like if I work three more years.”
“I've got a big tax bill and I still haven't got my head round why.”
Nobody is asking for a better investment return. They are asking for permission to make a decision, backed by figures they can rely on.
That is what THE RETIREMENT PROGRAMME is for.
How it works
01 Forensic Analysis of your pension record
We go back through your service history (often as far back as 2011) and cross-check it line by line. Service records against payslips. Payslips against Total Reward Statements. Pension savings statements against what the tax position should have been.
Where the figures do not reconcile, we tell you. Where remedial work is needed with the scheme, your trust or PCSE, we carry it out and we chase it.
You get a written report setting out what is reliable, what is not, and what needs fixing.
02 Full pension forecasting
Once we know what we are working with, we model your NHS pension across every route open to you.
Retirement ages. 1995 and 2015 sections. Partial retirement. Retire and return. Actuarial reduction. Lump sum choices. Scheme Pays and its effect on your benefits. Any Annual Allowance charges likely to appear between now and the day you stop.
You end up with a set of tables showing what each route produces, so a decision that has felt impossible for years becomes a comparison.
03 Your retirement plan & 12 months of 1:1 sessions
We build the plan around your life, not just the pension. Cashflow modelling and stochastic testing show whether the income holds up across a long retirement, not just in year one.
Then we work through it together in planning sessions: how the Annual Allowance system works, what paperwork to expect, how your service pattern and McCloud affect you, and how to build assets outside the scheme.
You are not handed a report and left with it.
What we cannot do
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We cannot control the NHS.
Some cases run through in weeks. Others take years, because we are waiting on a scheme that cannot always answer. We have had clients on our books for three, four and five years while we resolved their records. We do not walk away.
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We do not always promise a bigger pension.
Sometimes the forensic work uncovers money that was missed. Sometimes it confirms your record is clean, and the value is knowing that. Both outcomes are worth having before you make an irreversible decision.
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Once your pension goes into payment, that is it.
For the rest of your life. Which is exactly why the checking happens first.
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We do not tell you what to do.
Seven Medical provides guidance, education and modelling. You make the decision. Where something falls outside what we do, we will say so and point you in the right direction.
This might be right for you if:
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You are a consultant, GP, dentist or senior NHS professional
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You are within roughly ten years of when you would like to stop
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You have service across more than one section of the scheme, more than one trust, or a mixed GP and hospital career
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You have had Annual Allowance charges, used Scheme Pays, or are unsure whether you should have
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You have looked at your figures and thought "that does not look right"
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You value having a fully comprehensive financial plan
It is unlikely to be the right fit for you if
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You want a quick answer to a single question about an Annual Allowance tax charge
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You have never had, or likely to ever suffer from, an Annual Allowance charge
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You don't want a financial plan to support your retirement decisions
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You do not value having an experienced financial adviser map out your retirement plan.