Leaving your job
The information on this page is for members of the NHS and New NHS Pension Schemes who are leaving NHS employment and want to know more about their options for benefits built up through their membership of these Schemes and, if applicable, from an NHS Money Purchase AVC.
Members who intend to rejoin NHS employment within one year should consider taking no action: both the NHS and New NHS Pension Schemes allow you to add together periods of membership up to 12 months apart.
If you are a member of the NHS Pension Scheme (Amended April 2008) and return to work in the NHS after a break in pensionable employment of any one period of 5 years or more, you will only be eligible to join the New NHS Pension Scheme when you return.
Choices open to members on leaving the scheme depend on how much membership they have in the main Scheme, and whether they are buying NHS Money Purchase AVCs, but whatever the case, members can normally choose a transfer of benefits to another registered pension scheme.
Members with at least 2 years’ membership can also choose to defer benefits for payment when they reach retirement age
Members with less than 2 years' membership can choose a refund of contributions instead of a transfer to another registered pension scheme. Further information on this option and a form to request quotations of the transfer payment and refund of contributions can be found in Leaving the Scheme – SDK which is available in the members’ library.
Members of the NHS Pension Scheme (Amended April 2008) who take a refund of contributions will only be eligible to join the New NHS Pension Scheme if they later return to NHS work.
Whatever you decide for your main Scheme benefits will automatically happen to Money Purchase AVCs you may have built up with one or more of the NHS providers,. But, if you wish, you can decide separately about your NHS AVCs. For example: defer your main Scheme benefits but transfer your NHS AVC benefits.
Your pension rights are valuable. Please read the Leaving the Scheme booklet and think carefully about what you do. If you are staying in NHS employment but thinking about leaving the Scheme, you should speak to your Pension Officer and ask for form SD502. If you are in any doubt you should seek independent financial advice.