Pension tax crisis: reform needs to be swift to tackle doctors’ sense of injustice

I am one of thousands of senior doctors facing a situation where my pension, once perceived as a benefit for long and committed service to the NHS, is now a financial liability. The combination of an imposed new pension scheme and a fiendishly complicated regime of punitive taxation on pensions growth has caused me and many other senior doctors to question the true reward for working hard for the NHS.

My trust in “the system” is rapidly evaporating. The covenant was that you worked long and hard, dedicating your life to the NHS; in return you received a reasonable income and a comfortable retirement. It’s a sobering realisation that the government can ignore the covenant, change the system, and impose tax and pension changes, dismissing your lifelong commitment.

Employed doctors in the NHS have lived with simple tax affairs. Employers …