Early retirement on medical grounds

[Atpin]

How ill do you have to be to get early retirement on medical grounds? A friend of mine is 56 has Crohn's disease, suffers from work related stress & is on anti-depressants. She has just been diagnosed with angina, has suspected diabetes and furthermore her father died at 62 with a heart attack. Despite all this she tries to keep fit and get out & about. She wants to give up work, but is afraid that her public service employer will not agree to early retirement on medical grounds and she will just have to take the less advantageous early retirement. Any advice?

[factor-fiction]

Normally these decisions are made by the pension scheme trustees.

[Fay Mousse]

Is she still working? She will need to be off sick for some considerable time and fail the 'all work' test. This means that she is incapable of doing any job within her organisatoin and has little chance of recovering.

She may be deemed unfit for her current job but her employer may be able to find her a different job that is less stressful, for example. Or put her on to part time for a while (on full pay) to give her time to get over her current depression. Her employer could send her to a counsellor.

She must not be fit enough for any job that her organisation could reasonably ask her to do to qualify for medical pension. The rules have really toughened up, and if she is still managing to work she has no chance.

[wolf63]

In addition to what factor and fay say:-

I worked in the civil service. When I was 40 I went off sick (October 2003) and by October 2004 I had been offered retirement on health grounds.

I suffer from Bipolar Disorder and the work doctor that I saw felt that I should not be working at all with this disorder. I was paid a lump sump and receive an ongoing pension from the civil service.

There is a set procedure that your friend's employer will take - it will be written down in the conditions of service type manual that her employer will keep.

To be honest, looking back, I had been very unfit (mentally) for work for a few years. But people tend to struggle on with their illhealth.

Best wishes to your friend.

[craft1948]

My sister was off sick for 6 months and then evaluated by the company doctor who agreed she could not work. She was signed off for another 6 months, evaluated again and then given medical retirement.

[buildersmate]

All of the above is very valid for the specific employers in the examples.
There is simply no obligation for an employer to give any employee early retirement on medical grounds - unless it specificially says so in the organisationa policies and practices.
She can retire early if she so wishes - on the terms she has for a 56 year old with x years service - down-factored for the period of extra time she will be drawing her pension. It is blindingly obvious that those terms will be 'less advantageous' then someone at age 60 with another 4 years of contributions in the pot.

[RAJVEE]

I am a nationalised bank officer working in the loans department for the last 17 years.I am suffering from psychaitric/mental illness problem for the alst 15 years and taking medicine regularly under the advise of a psychaitrist.one loan exposure of one crore failed,no fault of mine and the borrower frauded the bank.the bank took diciplinary proceedings against me by cutting increments and filinf prosecution court case in CBI court.The court case is going for the last 5 years and there is no progress in the court case and it may go for another 5 years.now i am regularly getting my increments.I submitted my resignation for the reason of away from the family for the alst 6 years,which the bank not accepted by quoting the court case pending.I appealed to HRM department.No reply from them.Then I applied for 3 months sick leave and in the meantime I sent my intention to laeve the services of the bank by quoting my Psychaitric Problem/mental illness raeson with a support of my Psychiatric letter.As I am taking medication,I am unable to work and concentrate in the job.In this circumstance,whether bank give me early retirement under medical grounds though the cour case is pending and give all my retirement benefits with pension.Please elucidate in this matter.