Under the NHS Pension Scheme regulations GP locums, who are freelance self-employed workers, are entitled to join the NHS Pension Scheme. While pensioning your locum income sounds simple enough, you do need to understand the rules to avoid some potential issues before you retire.
“I’m a salaried GP and do some freelance locum work. Do I have to make pension contributions for my locum work?”
If a GP carries out both salaried and freelance work, theoretically they must pension all or nothing. There is, however, a 10-week time limit on paying over the contributions on freelance work. If the deadline is missed, the income cannot be pensioned. This effectively means that a locum can choose not to pension their freelance work.
The 10-week time limit was removed during Covid-19 and locums wishing to pension their income have been allowed to submit their Locum A pension forms late. The 10-week rule will be reinstated from 1 Oct 2022, NHS BSA says, so any late forms need to be submitted by then.
