What a start to 2026. Global geopolitical upheaval which shows no signs of settling. The NHS by any measure failing to meet the entirely legitimate demands on its services in any of the four nations.
Resident doctors in Scotland managed to avoid needing to take industrial action earlier in January following an improved offer from Scottish Government which may in part have resulted from them facing the electorate in a little over 12 weeks time.
Retired members' conference
The BMA retired members conference will be upon us in few short weeks, on 12 March 2026, and many of you have signed up to attend, it will be good to meet you there and have the opportunity to meet face to face.
While there may no longer be space to attend in person we are encouraging any and all who would like to participate to register for the live webcast and we make every effort to ensure as inclusive experience as we can manage for remote attendees including the ability to vote along with members in the room.
Unfortunately, remote attendance will not include lunch. Attendees are invited to upload motions for debate and will be able to nominate and elect to the retired members committee and retired representatives to the BMA annual representative meeting.
UK council elections
The next UK council for the following three years is in the process of elections and will be in post from June following the ARM in Brighton. The system is open for nominations until 16 February and voting will take place between March and April. Please do engage even if it is just to record your votes for those you would like to see go forward and represent us over the next three years. There is one seat on UK Council reserved for a retired member.
Retired members' dinner at ARM
We do plan to organise dinner for retired members attending the ARM in Brighton, 22 to 24 June. If that includes you and you would like to participate please could you get in touch and let us know so that we can start to figure out the size of facility we are going to need.
BMA workstreams
There are many challenges facing all of us and some are of particular interest to many retired members:
– progress of the various legislations in respect of assisted dying
– perception of the value of AI in delivering medical care
– substitution for doctors in the provision of care
– climate change.
All of these are getting attention within the BMA.
Pensions
Pensions are a perennial challenge and at the moment many retired members are still awaiting statements in respect of the McCloud Remedy as we are it appears at the bottom of the list and a number also delayed by complexity.
When you do finally get the paperwork please do not ignore it, there is also support / compensation for fees charged to help you work through the statements. Do not assume that the old 1995 system is automatically going to provide you with the best pension.
Pension Indexing each April should be automatic and your annual pension should be increased by the previous September CPI figure every April, if it doesn’t then you need to enquire why and resolve it. While the state pension may become frozen for those that retire outside the UK this is not the case for NHS Pensions which should continue to be indexed wherever you are in the world.
A common question is which is better, Retire and Return or Partial Retirement. They are different and apparently seem to be working differently in different parts of the UK. Partial retirement should enable you to retain any discretionary awards which will not generally be paid with Retire and Return.
However, Partial Retirement will not work if there is an option to move to another delivery unit and start a new job. There may also be additional complexity from working for more than one employer. In summary there is no one size fits all.
As always we welcome hearing from you with issues and problems, where we can do better and it is heartening if we hear we have done well.
Chair, BMA retired members committee
RMC secretariat