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BMA wins court victory over unlawful changes to doctors’ pensions

The Government has been refused permission to appeal an earlier judgement against the suspension of pension payments to doctors charged with a criminal offence.

In April 2019, the Secretary of State amended NHS pension rules in England and Wales giving himself the power to suspend the payment of pension benefits to a doctor or NHS professional who had been charged with certain criminal offences, but not yet convicted.

In January 2020, the BMA was successful in having the regulations scrapped but the Government sought to appeal the decision. The Court of Appeal has now refused permission to appeal.

In reaching the decision, the Rt. Hon. Lady Justice Nicol Davies DBE said: “The Secretary of State has come nowhere close to fulfilling his duties” and that the sanctioning of a doctor or NHS professional in advance of a fair trial could causing “irreversible prejudice that is incapable of later remedy”.

Commenting on the judgment, the BMA’s Interim Director of Legal Services, Gareth Williams said: “The BMA was deeply disappointed that the Secretary of State for Health chose to introduce regulations that permitted him to suspend our members’ pensions without them having been convicted of any offence or having had the right to a fair trial. We regarded this a clear breach of the law and after trying to resolve matters amicably, we were left with no choice but to take the matter to the High Court for judicial determination.

'We were very disappointed that the Secretary of State chose to appeal the very clear and well-reasoned judgment of the Court that was handed down in January of this year.

'With all the pressures that our members face, it was important that we saw this case through to its conclusion to ensure that they cannot have their pension taken away from them, on the basis of potentially spurious allegations, unsupported by evidence, to which they have never had the right to defend themselves in Court'.

The BMA will now be seeking recovery of its legal costs from the Government.


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