§ Mr. FrenchTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has made for introducing a retirement age for general medical practitioners and for abolishing 24-hour retirement without abatement of pension; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. MellorAs we made clear in "General Practice in the NHS: A New Contract", issued to all GPs in February, compulsory retirement for general medical practitioners aged 70 or over will be introduced from April 1991.
We intend to reduce the retirement age to 65 in due course, as proposed in the White Paper "Working for Patients". The arguments for doing so in terms of standards of service to patients are strong. However we are proceeding on a longer timetable for that proposal and our first objective is to introduce a compulsory retirement age of 70 for GPs.
"Promoting Better Health" made clear that similar provisions should apply to general dental practitioners. We will therefore introduce a retirement age of 65 on April 1997. This retirement age will be introduced in stages. That is, dental practitioners aged 72 or over on 1 April 1990 will have to retire on that date. The age of retirement will be reduced thereafter year by year after 1990 until it reaches 65 in 1997. We have negotiated with the General Dental Services committee compensation payments for those dentists who retire in the first three years of the scheme for loss in respect of the sale of goodwill of their practices.
Regulations on the compulsory retirement of GPs and dentists will be published as soon as possible.
Turning to 24-hour retirement, we will end from April 1990 the provision whereby a general medical or opthalmic medical practitioner, or dental practitioner, may on reaching 65 retire, draw his or her pension and return to practice after 24 hours without abatement of pension. This provision is wholly exceptional in the public sector. It was introduced to encourage elderly practitioners to remain in practice at a time when there was a shortage of young doctors and dentists. Now that there are adequate numbers of younger doctors and dentists the arrangement is no longer justified. The position of those practitioners who currently benefit under this provision will be protected.