24 Hour Retirement: Accessing Your NHS Pension as a Dentist

24-hour retirement lets an NHS dentist draw their NHS Pension Scheme benefits, including the tax-free lump sum, while continuing to work in the practice, provided they take a genuine 24-hour break from all NHS pensionable service before returning. It is a long-established mechanism, but the details of how to do it correctly, what it means for your CQC registration, and how it now sits alongside a newer alternative, partial retirement, are widely misunderstood. Getting the mechanics wrong risks the pension not being validly taken at all.

This post explains how 24-hour retirement actually works for NHS dentists, what CQC requires (and, just as importantly, does not require), and when partial retirement might now be the better route. It sits alongside our broader guidance on buying a dental practice, since retirement planning and practice transitions are frequently dealt with together as a principal moves towards stepping back.

What 24-hour retirement actually is

To be treated as retired for NHS Pension Scheme purposes and to draw your benefits, you must take a genuine break of at least 24 hours from all NHS pensionable service, across every NHS role you hold, before returning to NHS work. This is not a formality on paper; NHS Pensions is clear that your employer, or in the case of a GDS or PDS contractor, the relevant party, is responsible for verifying that the break actually happened. The break can fall on any day, including a weekend or bank holiday, provided it is a genuine 24-hour gap.

For a dentist who is a partner in a GDS or PDS contract, this means more than simply stopping clinical work for a day. To retire from the contract for pension purposes, the individual must cease to be a party to the GDS contract, which in a partnership structure means leaving the partnership entirely for the break period, not merely taking a day off clinically while remaining a partner. This is a common point of confusion: taking 24 hours away from the surgery chair is not the same as taking 24 hours away from the contract, and only the latter satisfies the pension requirement.

What happens to the practice and the NHS contract

Whether the GDS or PDS contract needs to be formally amended on NHS England’s Compass system depends entirely on what happens after the retirement, not on the retirement itself:

• If the dentist returns to the same partnership, company, or LLP with the agreement of the other partners, the contract can generally remain with the existing provider. The retirement closes that individual’s tenure and period of service, but does not require a new provider to be created.
• If the dentist returns as a clinician only, rather than as a partner or provider, the Commissioner needs to add them to the contract in Compass in that capacity.
• If a different dentist takes over as the sole provider, or the position changes more substantially, a new Provider ID or a Contract Provider Change may be needed.

The key practical point is that this needs planning with whoever manages the practice’s NHS contract administration, in parallel with the pension application, not as an afterthought once the pension paperwork is already moving.

What CQC requires: nothing, provided you stay a partner

This is the part of 24-hour retirement that generates the most unnecessary worry, and CQC has addressed it directly. Under CQC’s own published guidance, a dentist partner taking 24-hour retirement from their NHS contract has no CQC registration requirements to fulfil at all, provided they remain a partner in the CQC-registered partnership throughout.

The reasoning is straightforward: a person does not need to be a dentist, or to hold an NHS contract, to be a partner or a registered manager in a CQC registered partnership. NHS contract status and CQC partnership status are simply two separate things. A partner who retires from their NHS contract for the 24-hour period but does not retire from their responsibilities as a partner remains accountable, alongside the other partners, for the regulated activities carried on at the practice throughout that period. There is no need to notify CQC or take any action regarding CQC registration purely because of a 24-hour retirement.

This matters in practice because it is common to see this confused with the CQC implications of a full sale or change of provider, which are entirely different and do carry a formal application process. We cover that separately in our guide to the CQC application process when buying or selling a dental practice. A 24-hour retirement is not a change of CQC provider, and should not be treated as one, provided the individual stays within the existing partnership structure.

Why dentists do this: the tax-free lump sum and pension access

The main reason dentists use 24-hour retirement is straightforward access to benefits: it allows a dentist who wants to draw their NHS pension, including the tax-free lump sum, to do so at their chosen retirement age without having to give up work at the practice entirely. For many dentists in their late fifties or sixties who are not yet ready to fully retire but want to access built-up pension value, or who want more control over how their pension growth interacts with the annual allowance, it is an effective planning tool.

The tax-free lump sum itself is subject to the standard Lump Sum Allowance, currently £268,275, which caps the amount of pension commencement lump sum that can be taken tax-free across all of an individual’s pensions combined (unless a protected higher allowance applies from before the rules changed). The standard annual allowance for pension contributions and growth, currently £60,000, is also a relevant consideration for dentists still accruing further NHS pension benefits after returning to work, particularly higher earners who may be subject to a tapered, lower annual allowance. These figures should always be checked against your specific circumstances with a financial adviser, since which section of the NHS Pension Scheme you are in (1995, 2008, or 2015) affects how your benefits are calculated.

The alternative: partial retirement (drawdown)

Since 1 October 2023, the NHS Pension Scheme has offered partial retirement, sometimes called drawdown, as a genuine alternative to 24-hour retirement, and for many dentists it is now the simpler route. Partial retirement allows a member aged 55 or over to draw between 20% and 100% of their pension benefits, in one or two stages, while continuing in their existing NHS role, without taking any break in service at all.

The condition is that the member must agree a new working arrangement that reduces their pensionable pay by at least 10%, and that reduced pay must be maintained for at least 12 months. For a dentist, this could mean reducing sessions, stepping back from a management role, or otherwise genuinely reducing pensionable earnings, rather than a token administrative change.

Neither option is automatically “better”, the right choice depends on whether you want a full, clean break from the contract and partnership for a day (24-hour retirement), or a genuinely reduced ongoing role without any break at all (partial retirement). Dentists who are also planning a wider ownership transition, such as bringing in a new partner or beginning a phased exit from the practice, often find 24-hour retirement fits more naturally with the legal restructuring already taking place, since the partnership documentation is being amended in any event.

Practical steps and common pitfalls

• Apply in good time. If you are performing NHS dental work, the relevant Commissioner needs three months’ notice before you can take your pension, so this needs to be planned well ahead of your intended retirement date, not decided at short notice.
• Get the partnership documentation right. Because a partner must genuinely leave the GDS or PDS partnership to satisfy the 24-hour break, your partnership deed needs to properly document how retirement and re-admission work, including what happens if, for any reason, re-admission is delayed or contested. This is a legal document issue, not just a pension administration one.
• Coordinate with the practice’s Compass administration. Whether the contract needs amending on NHS England’s system depends on what happens after the break, so this needs to be agreed with whoever manages the contract before the retirement date, not worked out afterwards.
• Do not assume CQC needs telling. As set out above, if you remain a CQC partner throughout, no CQC notification or registration change is required purely because of a 24-hour retirement. Confusing this with a genuine change of CQC provider can lead to unnecessary applications, or worse, to overlooking a genuine CQC obligation elsewhere in a wider transaction.
• Take financial advice on the pension mechanics themselves. The lump sum allowance, annual allowance, and how your specific NHS Pension Scheme section calculates your benefits are matters for a financial adviser, not your solicitor. We work alongside financial advisers on these transactions rather than duplicating that advice.

What this means for you

If you are an NHS dentist thinking about accessing your pension while continuing to work, 24-hour retirement remains a well-established route, provided the partnership mechanics and NHS contract administration are handled correctly, and it carries no CQC registration burden as long as you remain a partner throughout. Partial retirement, available since October 2023, is worth considering as a genuinely different alternative if a clean break from the contract does not suit your circumstances. Either way, this works best when planned properly in advance, not decided in the weeks before you want to stop drawing a full-time income.

If incorporation or a wider tax planning exercise is also part of your thinking about the practice’s future, our post on incorporating your dental business before Capital Gains Tax changes covers the related tax planning angle.

We advise dental partners on the partnership and CQC aspects of 24-hour retirement and phased ownership transitions, working alongside your financial adviser and accountant on the wider picture. If you would like to talk through your options, get in touch with our healthcare team or call us on +44 207 566 1188, or email info@gurvelegal.com.