Eleven medical organisations are jointly calling on the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, to use the upcoming Budget to provide a long-term solution to the pension taxation crisis.
In a letter to the Chancellor, the BMA and several of the Royal colleges say the Chancellor must provide a result that enables all doctors and allied health professionals to do the extra work that patients desperately need without the fear of incurring unexpected pension tax bills.
The signatories say the medical profession is facing “an intolerable dilemma - incur a disproportionate and ever-expanding pensions tax bill or cut short their service to the NHS, reducing hours or turning down vital additional work”.
“We are encouraged that the Government has committed to announcing a resolution to this issue in the Budget, but it must be the right one; one which will safeguard the NHS workforce for the long term,” they write.
“We are past the point when significant action should have been taken. The NHS is amid a workforce crisis, with rising waiting times for cancer and routine surgery. A&E performance it at its worst since records began and 11 million patients are experiencing unacceptable waiting times for GP appointments,” it states.
The signatories are:
- The BMA
- The Royal College of Surgeons
- The Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of England
- The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
- The Royal College of Physicians
- The Royal College of Pathologists
- The Royal College of General Practitioners
- The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
- The Royal College of Radiologists
- The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow
- The UK Faculty of Public Health
