Later life career planning

15 Jul 2016

Assessing aspirations and options available for later career stages.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges Flexible Careers Group is canvasing views on the optimal career plan and working terms and conditions for colleagues in the later stages of their careers. With the planned increase in retirement age there are potentially many implications for those working in the NHS.

There may be some doctors who wish to continue to work and feel encouraged to postpone retirement. Equally, there may be many others who are concerned about their ability to continue to perform at a high enough level and will seek to retire. Others may be happy to continue to work if given the option of reducing their workload. Several flexible retirement options, some related to the Flexible Careers Scheme, exist, and, particularly in shortage specialties, should be attractive to both doctors and employers. However, there is considerable evidence of doctors who wish to access these options having difficulty resulting, in many cases, in premature retirement. Such doctors represent an enormous resource of knowledge, experience and expertise, which should not be wasted.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges feels it is important exactly what options and opportunities would be attractive to doctors in the later stages of their careers and so are conducting a national survey. The results will be used to develop evidence based recommendations to present to NHS Employers which can be used both to inform changes in the terms and conditions and assist in workforce planning. Your involvement in this survey may help you and should help others in the future.

Participate in the survey

Closing date: Friday 16 September 2016