All GP locums enrolled in the NHS Pension scheme need to file Form A and Form B paperwork to pay into their pensions.
Locum Form A
GPs file Form A at the same time that they invoice a practice for work. The form, produced by NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA), includes information about the locum and the practice.
Locum Form B
After completing a month’s work and the related paperwork, you then file Form B. This form specifies exactly how much you need to pay for that month’s pension contribution, and it works on a calendar month basis.
How do I create a Locum Form A on LocumDeck?
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No credit card details needed – it takes two minutes.
Why isn’t my electronic signature on my Locum Form A?
LocumDeck adds your signature to all Form As that have been e-signed by the practices at the point that you request LocumDeck to generate your e-signed Form B.
At the same time, your Locum Form B is stamped with the UPR and all e-signed Form As are merged into one file for easier sending.
Form A is your claim to the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) to pension work performed at a specific practice for that month, so your signature to authenticate your claim needs to be added to Form A before you submit it to NHSBSA. It is not necessary for your signature to be on Form A before you send it to the practice.
What is e-signing?
An e-signature (electric signature) is a ‘mouse’ or ‘stylus’ signature. It does not need to match your usual ‘wet’ or ‘pen’ signature, although you can set this up.
LocumDeck enables e-signatures, which means all Form A and B paperwork can be done digitally.
How to e-sign forms on LocumDeck
E-signing works when you are linked with a practice. Certain information relating to your bookings and invoices are shared with them, including instant sharing of your invoices and any Locum Form As. In return, the linked practice can e-sign your Form A and confirm they have sent payment in a couple of clicks, and this is instantly shared on your All Invoices.
It’s all designed with on-board help to make it as easy and straightforward as possible. Here it is broken down into three steps.
Add your electronic signature. Go to your LocumDeck >> Settings >> My invoice & pension info to add your electronic signature. You can recreate your signature using mouse, or some find it easier to use a tablet or smartphone and signing with your finger or a stylus.
Send your invoice and Locum Form A in the usual way. No signature is added at this stage as this is not needed when you send your Form A to the practice.
E-sign by practice. The practice gets an email notification of your invoice and are told that if they login to LocumDeck they can e-sign your Form A. The practice manager is led through setting up their electronic signature. They only have to do this once, and then for each subsequent Form A, they are asked to certify your work and pensionable pay, add the GP you were covering for and the date and method of payment.
TIP: Verified NHS email accounts. We only add signatures to Form A after they’ve been signed by the practice manager, and the practice manager can only have a LocumDeck account if they have verified their NHS email address. PCSE are then perfectly happy that the form has been through at least one verified NHS email account.
How does a practice e-sign Locum Form A?
After you have completed Locum Form A for sessions at a practice, send it to the practice manager to sign or e-sign, then sign it yourself and file it to PCSE for processing.
How do I generate a Locum B form?
To start
To be ready to generate Form B, you will first have completed your Invoice & pension info in Settings and have sent invoices with Form As and marked them as paid.
Then:
Go to Invoices >> Locum Form B
Select the month to see invoices and Form As that have been marked as paid that month.
All pensionable invoices that were paid in that month will be displayed.
Tick the checkboxes next to each invoice to add their payments to the Form B.
Choose between Generate Form B or Generate e-signed Form A & B.
Generate Form B
If your Form As are still signed by hand by the practice, then Generate Form B will populate your Form B, allowing you to sign the included Form As by hand and send them on, with Form B, to your pension agency.
Use the Unique payment reference (UPR) on your Form B as your bank payment reference when sending payment.
Generate e-signed Forms A&B
If your Form As have been e-signed by the practices, then this option will not only generate your Form B, but also process all practice e-signed Locum Form As by:
adding your e-signature
merging all e-signed Form As into a single file for easier sending
alerting you if there are any straggler Form As that have not been e-signed by the practice – their information will be added to the Form B but you’ll need to sign them by hand.
Your completed Form B includes two key pieces of information that you need to submit your pension payments and paperwork:
The amount of total pension contribution you need to pay
Unique Payment Reference (UPR) – a code unique to you which contains your pension scheme number and the month of last worked – that you must use as your bank payment reference so the pension administrators can match your payment to your pension record.
See our FAQ in this Help section on “Where do I send my completed pension forms and pension payments?”
Locum Form B tracker
Your Form B and any associated e-signed Form As will be stored in your Locum Form B Tracker. You can:
Reverse a Form B up to two weeks after it is generated to amend any errors – click grey cross
Add notes on any PCSE reference numbers or payment methods
Following changes to the guidance on how to complete Form B and how to use UPR, from 1 Oct 2022, the name of the new form B in ‘Your Locum Form B Tracker’ will reference the month of the last date of work on the Form to be consistent with the UPR on your Form B.
Where do I send my completed pension forms and pension payments?
England
Locum Form A and Form B can be submitted in any of three ways:
PCSE contact form
PCSE Online web portal
LocumDeck
1. PCSE contact form
Pay by Bacs. The bank account details you require can be obtained by calling PCSE on 0333 014 2884.
Ensure that all your pension forms include the Unique Payment Reference based on your SD number. If your paperwork does not contain this reference, your pension payment will not be processed.
2. PCSE Online
NB NASGP currently recommends using the above alternatives to PCSE Online until significant issues have been addressed.
PCSE online does not (yet) allow:
1. Generation of more than one Form B per month; 2. Archive of paper copies: “Always keep copies of all your GP locum pension forms.” – NHS Form B notes. 3. Additional Pension (AP) contributions to be made.
NASGP members have also expressed concern over missing information that they have submitted through PCSE Online, frequent system crashes, with data being lost and difficulties in getting Form A approved by practice managers on the system (the equivalent of the practice ‘signing Form A’). And see the BMA’s growing list of complaints about PCSE’s portal.
Although PCSE have provided the capability for Form A/B to be automated through LocumDeck, we are unable to commit this to going live until PCSE have fixed issues relating to the submission of more than one Form B per month, missing data, ‘Row J’, Additional Pension contributions etc. As soon as this is ready, we will inform all members straight away!
Please note, as of 2024 we understand the ‘by post’ option no longer exists.
Wales
Send your completed forms and payment to your relevant Local Health Board. GP-one Wales maintains a partial list of the 7 Health Boards with their pension contacts for GP locums.
Email contact for locum pension enquiries is gplocums@hscni.net
How do I invoice for non-sessional work on LocumDeck?
LocumDeck’s ‘off-locum work’ feature allows you to add non-sessional work.
Non-sessional work includes:
Private work.
Lecturing.
Writing
Speaking.
Appraisal.
Invoices, and if applicable, Locum Form A and B, can also be generated for ‘off-locum work’ sessions booked into your calendar.
Any fees for this work will be shown in the Other fees area in Bookkeeper.
Can I print my invoice?
Yes – from ‘All invoices’, click VIEW to access a downloadable PDF file of the invoice.
How do GPs invoice for sessional work on LocumDeck?
A locum session becomes ‘ready for invoicing’ once it is underway – it then appears as pale blue in your calendar.
Invoice session by clicking the session on your calendar and using the menu (blue circle with three white dots) or via Invoices >> Create invoice. On Create invoice, the “Select practice” dropdown will show you all your practices that need to be invoiced.
Select a practice to see a list of sessions that are ready for invoicing.
When you tick the sessions you want to invoice, you will see the invoice preview, complete with automatic pension calculations, appear on the right hand side.
Either: Hit SEND and the invoice and any attached Locum Form A will be emailed to the practice and become viewable online in their LocumDeck. Or: Hit SAVE and EXIT to save the invoice (and any Locum Form A) to ‘All invoices’ without sharing with the practice.
In both cases, your invoice details and any pension contribution are automatically saved in Bookkeeper.
Can I invoice on LocumDeck for sessional GP work booked off LocumDeck?
Yes, you can invoice for work on LocumDeck for work booked outside of LocumDeck.
Add the practice to your LocumDeck address book (it’s called “My practices”).
Add your sessions at that practice into your LocumDeck calendar.
After you work your session, create and send an invoice in the usual way. (If you claim NHS pension on this session, LocumDeck will also generate a Locum Form A and update your Bookkeeper data).
If you have already invoiced a practice outside of LocumDeck, but want to record it within Bookkeeper, then instead of pressing the SEND button, leave the sessions as “ready for invoice” on the calendar. Bookkeeper will pick up the fee and include it in your earnings.
When should I send invoices for locum work?
Whenever and as often as you like. There are no rules. Some invoice at end of month, others bi-weekly. But it’s probably more important to build a habit of regular invoicing and pension admin that fits your work routine.
Our experience is that most locums invoice at the end of the month.
One time-limit to be aware of with invoicing is that you cannot pension work that was carried out more than 10 weeks ago.
Can I print my invoice?
Yes – from ‘All invoices’, click VIEW to access a downloadable PDF file of the invoice. Practices can also download or print invoices from their LocumDeck account by clicking on the invoice number/reference.
What should I do if a practice asks me to use their invoice template for my locum session?
We generally advise GP locums against using a practice’s own invoice template after doing a locum session. In our experience such templates have often left out key information, such as NHS pension calculations, terms of payment and automatic sequential invoice numbering.
Also, insistence on using an employer-generated template for payments (like a time sheet) might tip the balance of the service provided by the GP locum from being self-employed to instead being a ‘worker’ or employee, thus risking placing liability for IR35 tax, NI and even holiday pay on to the employer.
As you will be aware, as self-employed service providers, GP locums must keep all financial records and issue invoices and credit notes in a contemporaneous way, with a sequential invoice numbering system.
In future, they will also be required to use an HMRC-approved digital accounting and invoicing system as part of UK-Gov’s Making Tax Digital plans.
LocumDeck is an NHS-approved, NHS Digital Service Framework provider locum management platform, used in every ICB in England, and across the UK, and is approved by NHS Pensions to incorporate paperless NHS pensions documentation. LocumDeck is ready to become Making Tax Digital compliant once the launch date is finalised.
The template used in LocumDeck has been in service for almost 10 years, with approximately 350,000 GP locum invoices being successfully generated using this template.
That said, we are always open to feedback, and if you have any suggestions as to how we can improve our invoice template, we will be delighted to hear from you using the contact form on our website or the email info@nasgp.org.uk.
More advice for starting out with GP locum accounts
"I fell into a salaried role post-CCT, so faced with an unexpected relocation to a completely new area of the country the thought of GP locuming was incredibly daunting.
The assistance I have received from NASGP has been invaluable. I have received excellent and patient admin support when setting up my LocumDeck account. I have enjoyed the monthly chambers meetings I have attended: this made locuming feel far less isolating.
I have easily found plentiful work and am grateful for the invoicing and pension forms being taken care of – this gives me time to focus on the clinical work or make the most of precious days off.
With the support of NASGP Locum Chambers I have filled my diary working in a variety of practices in my new area, and have now joined one practice I enjoyed locuming at on a salaried basis while I continue to do some locum work on top using LocumDeck."
Dr Joanne Wright, GP, Essex
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