Ill Health Retirement - Teachers

Page updated: 02/07/2026

Teachers who are dismissed on ill health grounds are responsible for making an application for ill health retirement to Teacher’s Pensions.  To qualify, teachers must have two years' service.  The application forms for ill health retirement can be downloaded from the Teacher's pension website.  

Teachers will need to complete the ill health retirement application form and the Authority and Occupational Health Advisor should complete the medical information form to provide evidence of the ill health. If Occupational Health consider the application does not contain enough medical information to enable the application to be fully considered they will provide the applicant with the opportunity to consider if there is additional information that can be provided.

The forms should be sent to Teachers Pensions together with any additional medical evidence that the member wants to include. Teachers’ Pensions will consider the application and the Authority and teacher will be notified of the decision.

If ill health is granted and the teacher is still actively teaching, arrangements must be made for this to cease immediately. The Authority will provide details of the member’s pensionable service and salary from the date of their last submission to Teachers’ Pensions, up to the last day of pensionable service.

If the application is accepted then there are two levels of ill health benefits that may be granted. The levels depend on which of the following conditions are satisfied:

  • permanently unable to teach but are able to do other work - In this circumstance applicants could receive immediate payment of their accrued benefits or
  • permanently unable to teach and unable to do any other work - In this circumstance applicants would receive an enhancement based on half of the service they could have completed before reaching their Normal Pension Age (NPA) and their salary at retirement.

Where a member’s condition is serious and their life expectancy is less than a year, their pension can be paid as a one-off lump sum of approximately five times the initial pension. The member needs to request this when making their application for ill-health retirement to ensure that their request is correctly considered.

From 1st April 2015 if a teacher applies for ill health retirement within two years of leaving pensionable employment and there is evidence they left for the same medical reasons as their original application, they will be treated as though there are still in-service. This is to ensure that members are not disadvantaged if they have a slow to develop or difficult to diagnose condition.

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