From 1 April 2025, some minor and positive changes have been introduced to the England and Wales NHS Pension Scheme regulations. NHS Employers have created a useful webpage to summarise the changes. Branches are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the updates and approach employers to check they are aware and are taking forward the clear actions.

The way pension contribution tiers are updated has changed. Now the tiers are updated on 1 April in line with CPI from September the year before (it was 1.7% in September 2024). They will be adjusted again in line with the NHS pay award once this is known if the award is higher than 1.7%.

There is a change that clarifies the pensioning of additional hours (overtime) for part time staff. Employers must contact members of the scheme if they have not treated additional hours worked by part-time staff up to WTE as pensionable. In any such cases, members should be given a choice on whether to pension their additional hours, and have up to 1 July 2026 to make their decision.

There is clarification on calculating member contributions where pay reduces during a period of absence. Members may be owed a refund of overpaid pension contributions going back to 1 October 2022 if their employer had based their contribution rates on their full pay rather than their actual reduced pensionable pay (for example half pay during long term sickness). This change will not affect the build-up of pension benefits.

Finally, a change will be made to the scheme so that members who go straight from full pay to zero pay, will continue to accrue pension benefits, meaning their benefits will continue to be based on their pensionable pay from directly before the members went onto unpaid leave.