What to do when you receive an NHS Pension Savings Statement: A guide for medical professionals

Receiving an NHS Pension Savings Statement can be confusing, especially if you are not familiar with pension tax rules. For many doctors and other healthcare professionals, this document arrives unexpectedly, often in a brown envelope and raises immediate questions: What does this mean? Do I owe tax? What should I do next? 

This guide breaks down the key steps you should take when you receive your statement, helping you to understand your obligations and avoid costly mistakes. 

Understanding the NHS Pension Savings Statement

The NHS Pension Savings Statement is issued when your pension growth in a given tax year exceeds the Annual Allowance. This is a limit set by HMRC on how much your pension can grow tax-free each year.  The standard annual allowance for the 2025/26 tax year is £60,000, but this is reduced to an amount between £10,000 and £60,000 if you earn over £200,000.

The statement shows how much your pension has grown for Annual Allowance purposes, a detail that is essential when calculating whether you have exceeded the allowance. If you have exceeded the allowance, you will need to consider whether you have a pension savings tax charge to pay.  

Receiving this statement does not automatically mean you owe tax.  It’s a prompt to check your pension growth and assess whether you need to take action. Ignoring it, however, could lead to missed deadlines and penalties.

Errors in pension data are not uncommon, and so the first step will be to verify the dates, figures and any transitions between schemes, against various sources of data.

Impact of the McCloud Remedy

If you have received a Remedial Pension Savings Statement (RPSS), it may relate to the McCloud judgment, which found that the 2015 pension scheme changes were discriminatory.  As a result, NHS Pensions have been recalculating benefits for affected members for the period between 2015 and 2022.

This could mean:

• You may be entitled to a refund of overpaid tax. 
• You may need to submit revised tax returns or Scheme Pays elections. 

This process can be complex and you should seek professional advice.  

Owing tax

If you do owe tax, you have two main options:

• Pay it yourself via your Self-Assessment tax return. 
• Use Scheme Pays, where the NHS Pension Scheme pays the tax on your behalf and reduces your pension benefits accordingly.

If you choose Scheme Pays, you must notify NHS Pensions by the deadline.  This is usually 31 July falling sixteen months after the end of the tax year in which the charge arose.   For the 2023/24 tax year this would be 31 July 2025.  Late submissions may not always be accepted.

How we can assist you

We have the expertise in-house to be able to review your pension savings statement for accuracy and calculate your tax position, taking into account any additional income streams and pension schemes. Please do get in touch with us if you would like any assistance in reviewing your position.