As an HR professional, my natural inclination when people raise questions about pensions is to hide under the table and hope that no one notices me. Pensions are complicated and not really my area of expertise! However, sometimes pension issues bump into areas of HR practice and employment law that I’m much more confident about.…

I’ve been pondering the kinds of errors that are made when submitting the annual pension returns to NHS Pensions, the dreaded SD55. As a retired person, but still doing the odd practice management job, I fully understand the importance of accurate NHS pensionable service records and up-to-date contributions being recorded correctly. “Here’s another fine mess…

I’ve been looking at my Practice Manager Handover Manual again, having found an example of a practice that’s been going through a succession of managers and three GP retirements in the space of 12 months. I learnt that while there may have been a handover of sorts, the quality of the handovers left much to…

Final pay controls were introduced in 2014 to stop the abuse of the NHS Pension Scheme. Practices can face huge charges if they fall foul of the rules. Specialist medical accountant James Gransby explains. Many practice managers are unaware of final pay controls and the impact the resulting charges could have on their practice’s profitability.…

The government was struggling to keep up with medical concerns today after the deaths of three doctors from Covid-19 infection. GP Dr Habib Zaidi, aged 76, from Essex, became the first doctor to die from the virus last week and he was followed over the weekend by two hospital doctors. It came as deaths of…

Mention the subject of pensions in general practice and the tension in the atmosphere is likely to spike. The ongoing issue of pension rules and the impact they have had on services has long been a thorn in the side of general practices in trying to ensure they have sufficient cover for patient demand. However,…

As any new practice manager will soon discover, life is ruled by passwords. And obtaining a whole load of passwords to start working in a surgery can take a considerable amount of time. It’s not a five-minute job. Another problem is working remotely – say, from home – as many of the sites you might…