Doctors follow firefighters and judges with planned legal action

The BMA’s announcement follows the Supreme Court’s recent decision to deny the government leave to appeal a Court of Appeal ruling that pension changes discriminated against younger judges and firefighters. 

The court ruled in December 2018 that the government had discriminated against younger members and indirectly against women and ethnic minorities, as part of its 2015 public sector pension reforms.

The Fire Brigades Union argues that transitional arrangements were established to protect older members. It claims that the protection imposed on younger pension scheme members was unlawful on age, race and sex discrimination grounds.

Now the BMA has said that, although doctors’ pension schemes are different, the underlying legal principles are the same. It therefore wants to take action on behalf of at least a dozen doctors. 

“We want to bring a challenge on behalf of the UK’s younger doctors regarding the legality of the 2015 NHS pension scheme,” wrote BMA council chair Chaand Nagpaul in a statement this month. 

In 2015, two sections of the NHS pension scheme were closed, with lots of NHS employees moving to a newer 2015 version. It allowed some doctors to remain in the previous schemes until they retired or moved to the new pension plan at the end of a fixed transition period. 

The BMA is arguing that not allowing younger doctors to benefit from these transitional protections constitutes unlawful age discrimination. 

In March, it wrote to Matt Hancock, health and social care secretary, warning him of the intention to take legal action. 

Now the government has been denied leave to appeal in the judges’ and firefighters’ case, the BMA has said it wants the government to agree that it did unlawfully discriminate against the NHS scheme’s younger members. The BMA said it wants the government to “scrap the scheme” so that members are not adversely affected by it in the future.