The remedy rewrote seven years of pension history for a generation of NHS members. For dentists it was rebuilt from annual certificates and estimates spread across every practice you have worked at — so checking it is not scepticism, it is basic hygiene.
Article · 15 June 2026
The McCloud remedy took the pensionable service eligible members built up between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2022 — the remedy period — and, on 1 October 2023, moved it back into the legacy scheme. For NHS members that is the 1995 or 2008 Section. This is called rollback. It happened automatically, nobody was asked, and for most working dentists nothing visible changed at the time.
The choice comes later. Under the deferred choice underpin you decide whether you want legacy-scheme or 2015-scheme benefits for those seven years when you take your pension, not before. The Remediable Service Statement (RSS) is the document that sets out what each option is worth, side by side. It is also the document that has to be right, because it is the only comparison most members will ever be handed.
The NHS Business Services Authority is working through members in order of urgency, and the timetable runs a long way out:
If you are a working associate or principal, you are in the March 2027 group. That is genuinely good news, because it means there is time to get your earnings record straight before the statement is produced, rather than disputing it afterwards. Correcting a certificate now is administration. Correcting a statement you have already relied on is a different job entirely.
A salaried hospital doctor's pensionable pay comes off one payroll, one employer, one continuous record. A practitioner's does not. Your pensionable earnings are assembled from annual certificates and in-year estimates submitted for every contract you held, at every practice you worked at, for every year of the remedy period. Each of those submissions is a place where a number can go missing, and none of them were designed with a retrospective seven-year rebuild in mind.
The specific failure modes worth knowing about:
Here is the arithmetic, deliberately simplified and illustrative rather than a real client. Suppose 2018/19 shows pensionable earnings of £48,000 on your record, but the year-end certificate for that year said £61,500 — a £13,500 gap, which is roughly what one missing part-time contract at a second practice looks like.
1995 Section practitioner benefits accrue at 1.4% of each year's pensionable earnings, uprated to retirement. So the missing £13,500 is worth £13,500 × 1.4% = £189 a year of pension before any uprating is applied. The 1995 Section also pays an automatic lump sum of three times the pension, so add roughly £567 of tax-free cash. Draw that pension across a 25-year retirement and one wrong line on one year is worth about £4,725 in payments plus the lump sum — and materially more once uprating is in the picture.
Now the comparison the statement exists to make. The 2015 Scheme accrues at 1/54 of each year's pensionable earnings. On correct earnings of £61,500 that is £1,139 for the year; the 1995 Section's 1.4% gives £861 plus the automatic lump sum. Which option wins across the full seven years depends on your earnings profile, the age you take benefits, and how each set of figures is uprated — which is exactly why the numbers underneath the comparison have to be right before the comparison means anything.
Rollback also changed the pension input amounts for the remedy years, which means annual allowance positions that were settled at the time can be reopened. The annual allowance for 2026/27 is £60,000. It tapers by £1 for every £2 of adjusted income above £260,000, provided threshold income also exceeds £200,000, down to a floor of £10,000. Where the remedy alters a past year's input amount, the outcome is either compensation for a charge you overpaid or a new liability — which can usually be paid by the scheme rather than out of your own pocket. Principals and high-earning private associates are the most likely to be affected, and the ones least likely to notice, because the original charge was dealt with years ago.
We check remedy statements against clients' actual earnings history as part of the NHS pension work we do as standard, and reconcile superannuation every year for every practitioner client — which is what makes the check possible at all. If you are self-employed and unsure what your record even says, the associate tax guide covers where those figures come from.
Deadlines coming up, rule changes that affect dentists, and one number worth checking — once a month, no spam.
No. Under the deferred choice underpin, almost everyone still working makes the choice when they apply to take their pension, not before. Your remedy-period service was moved back into the 1995 or 2008 Section on 1 October 2023 by default, and the Remediable Service Statement shows you what each option would be worth so the decision can be made with figures in front of you. Members who had already retired and were most affected are the exception — they are offered a retrospective choice alongside their statement. The practical point for a working dentist is that the deadline is your retirement date, so the time to fix the underlying earnings record is now, while the paperwork still exists.
Not yet, if you are still working. The published timetable gives the NHS Business Services Authority until the end of March 2027 to issue statements to active and deferred members, with retired members most affected served first, by the end of December 2027, and retired members least affected by the end of June 2030. Nothing has gone wrong if yours has not appeared. Use the wait productively: reconstruct your own record of which practices you worked at during 2015 to 2022, and chase any year-end superannuation certificate that was never submitted. A statement built on a corrected record needs no argument afterwards.
From your annual pensionable earnings certificates and your accounts, not from memory. For each year of the remedy period you should be able to point to a certificate showing your pensionable earnings for each contract you held, and those figures should reconcile to the NHS income in your accounts. If a certificate was never filed, the estimate used for in-year superannuation deductions is what stands on your record — and estimates are usually wrong, because they were made before the year happened. This reconciliation is standard work for a dental accountant. If nobody has been doing it for you, that is the gap the remedy statement is about to expose.
Yes, in both directions. Rollback changed the pension input amounts for the remedy years, so an annual allowance position that was settled at the time can be recalculated. Some members are due compensation for a charge they overpaid; others acquire a new charge. Where a new liability arises, it can generally be paid by the scheme rather than from your own funds. The annual allowance for 2026/27 is £60,000, tapering by £1 for every £2 of adjusted income over £260,000 where threshold income also exceeds £200,000, down to a minimum of £10,000. Practice owners and high-earning private associates are the most likely to see a change.
Both, in that order. Verifying the service record and the pensionable earnings behind the statement is accountancy work: it means matching certificates, accounts and contracts year by year, and it is the part most likely to be wrong. Deciding what to do with the result — whether to take benefits early, how a choice interacts with your other retirement provision, whether to use a scheme-pays election — is regulated financial advice and needs an IFA who understands NHS practitioner benefits. Getting those the wrong way round is expensive: an adviser modelling a decision on unverified earnings figures is giving you a confident answer to the wrong question.
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