A Type 2 pension certificate (known as the Medical Practitioner self-assessment form) is required each year to ensure you are paying your pension contributions at the correct tiered rate.
Who needs to complete a Type 2 pension certificate?
The definition of a Type 2 medical practitioner is primarily:
- A salaried GP employed by a GP practice, APMS contractor or LHB.
- A GP who works solely on a self-employed basis for an Out of Hours provider.
The form is updated and released by NHS Pensions each year and can be completed directly on PCSE Online. An Excel version is also available on the NHS Pensions website.
The deadline for submission of your 2022/23 certificate has been extended from 28 February 2024 to 31 March 2024.
What is included on the certificate?
You need to include all relevant practitioner income on the form (e.g. salaried GP income / SOLO income and pensioned locum fees) to consider an overall pension tier rate, which is then applied to all income streams.
Any partnership income would also need to be included as part of calculating the pension tier rate. A separate type 1 certificate should be completed if you are also a GP partner.
You do not need to include any income from officer posts, such as registrar income or CCG employment income (providing this has not been included on a GP solo form).
You also need to consider if you have had practitioner earnings for the full year. If not, you may need to annualise your income in order to set your pension tier rate. There is an annualisation calculator on the NHS Pensions website to assist with this.
For 2022/23, the NHS Pension tiers rates were changed part way through the year (from 1 October 2022) which will need to be considered when completing the form.
If you had any authorised leave during 2022/23, such as maternity / paternity / sickness leave, you will also need to complete the ‘Authorised Leave’ tab of the form.
PCSE Contributions Statement
When completing your self-assessment form, it can be useful to obtain your Employee Contribution Statement for the financial year from PCSE Online to check PCSE’s record of your contributions paid for the year. Sign on or register at PCSE Online.
You can use this to check that the SOLO / locum contributions agree back to your monthly pension forms.
You can see the contributions collected through the GP practice on your behalf, please note that this may not be the same as the deductions showing on your monthly payslips.
If you complete the form on PCSE Online, the figures from your PCSE statement should pull through to the certificate.
Any differences should be queried with PCSE to avoid your certificate being rejected.
Locums
If you only had pensioned locum income during 2022/23, you do not need to complete the Type 2 self-assessment form, however, it is still your responsibility to ensure that your pension contributions have been paid at the correct pension tier rate.
Pension record
It is important that you check your pension record regularly and to ensure all your Type 2 forms have been submitted and processed. Any gaps in your pension record could affect your ability to obtain your correct pension on retirement.
Pension records can only be updated sequentially, therefore if a previous year is missing, your Annual Benefit Statement will only reflect pension figures up to the missing year, even if later year forms have been submitted.
If any years are missing, you should submit the forms for those years to PCSE. The previous years forms are still available on the NHS Pensions website along with amnesty forms available for 2009/10 to 2014/15 and 2015/16 to 2016/17.
If you require any further assistance, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our dedicated Healthcare team or call 0333 123 7171.
