If your application for ill-health retirement under the Teachers' Pensions Scheme has been rejected or only partially successful at Tier 1 and you are thinking of appealing against the outcome, you may find the following information useful.

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The Teachers' Pension Scheme provides two levels of ill-health retirement benefits: Tier 1 and Tier 2.  Further information can be found at the following link: Applying for ill health pension benefits 

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Tier 1: The employee must be permanently incapable of carrying out teaching duties due to ill-health but may be capable of undertaking other work up to the normal pension age.

Tier 2 i.e. Total Incapacity Benefit: The employee must be permanently incapable of undertaking their normal teaching duties and also unable to undertake any gainful employment up to the normal pension age. 

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Appeals against the ill-health retirement outcome

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It is not uncommon for an ill-health retirement application to be unsuccessful or only partially successful. Many employees do not appeal because the appeal process can be daunting. 

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If you wish to appeal against the outcome, you have the right to make two appeals, and there is no time limit. Unlike some of the other pension schemes, there is no need to complete an appeal form, but you are expected to provide further medical evidence to support your appeal. You can request a medical report from your GP and/or hospital specialist for this purpose, but it is less likely that your GP or hospital specialist will have the knowledge of ill-health retirement criteria. Therefore, a comprehensive and specific occupational health report from a consultant occupational physician is likely to be more valuable to the success of your appeal. 

 

Seeking an expert occupational health report

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​Our consultant occupational physician has knowledge and experience of the Teachers' pension scheme, its ill-health retirement criteria and appeal process.

 

We will

• review the available evidence, including medical and occupational health reports,

• carefully analyse the reasons given by the scheme's medical advisor for not supporting your ill-health retirement application.

• arrange an occupational health consultation and

• provide an expert report.

 

The report may strengthen your appeal and/or help you to consider whether to appeal against the outcome. If you wish to request an independent assessment and expert report, please complete an online self-referral form using the following link: IHR Appeal - Self-referral form

 

Please refer to our terms and conditions for this service.​

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