Daily Mail - 01.08.2019

Page 12 Daily Mail, Thursday, August 1, 2019

40% of GPs

retire or cut

hours over

pension row

Bin Laden’s son, the Crown

Prince of Terror, ‘is dead’

FOUR in ten GPs have taken

early retirement or slashed

their hours because of a pen-

sions crisis in the NHS.

A further third of family doc-

tors are planning to reduce their

appointment times within the

next year, figures reveal.

Campaigners warned last night

the crisis is putting patients’ lives at

risk and making it ‘harder than ever’

to get an appointment.

Pension reforms introduced in 2016

have forced senior doctors to cut

their hours to avoid a tax bill that

can run into tens of thousands.

A survey of 6,000 senior doctors by

the British Medical Association,

released today, revealed 70 per cent

of hospital consultants and three

quarters of GPs have either reduced

their hours or are planning to.

The vast majority of these have

cut back their hours in the past few

penalised by tax charges on their

pensions that have significantly

increased under Treasury rules

introduced in 2016.

Under the new rules, anyone earn-

ing more than £110,000 a year will be

hit with a tax charge if they put

more than £10,000 into their pen-

sion pot each year. Previously, they

could pay up to £40,000 into their

pension pot a year tax-free.

These individuals will be hit by

additional charges if the value of

their pension pot exceeds £1million.

These rules affect all high earners

but doctors – whose average sala-

ries are more than £100,000 a year –

are among the hardest hit.

Joyce Robins, from Patient Con-

cern, said: ‘It is absolutely horrify-

ing. It’s already difficult enough to

get a GP appointment. This will

make it harder than ever to be seen

by a doctor and put lives at risk.

‘It’s not my impression that doc-

tors do too badly and it sounds a bit

greedy, but if the Government needs

to sweeten the pot to stop them

quitting, it should do.’

The NHS is short of 10,000 hospi-

tal doctors and relies on GPs and

consultants working overtime to

plug gaps in the rota.

Dr Richard Vautrey, chairman of

the BMA’s GP committee, said:

‘With patient lists growing and the

numbers of GPs falling, swift and

decisive action is needed from

the Government to end this sham-

bolic situation and to limit the dam-

age that a punitive pensions tax-

ation system is inflicting.’

Boris Johnson promised last week

to tackle the pressures on family

surgeries and has pledged to ‘fix’

the pensions crisis.

The Department of Health and

Social Care said: ‘We’re consulting

on how we can make NHS pensions

more flexible and we will listen to all

views on our proposals.’

By Eleanor Hayward

and Sophie Borland

THe son of Osama bin Laden

• who was being groomed as
  the new leader of Al Qaeda –
  has reportedly been killed.
  The US had intelligence that
  Hamza bin Laden was no longer
  alive, but there were no other
  details, NBC News said.
  Washington has not officially
  confirmed the death which
  comes three months after
  it put a $1million (£820,000)
  bounty on Hamza’s head.
  If confirmed, it would mean
  that Al Qaeda has been thwarted
  in its attempt to use Hamza as
  its spiritual and tactical leader.
  He was described as the ‘crown
  prince of terror’ in 2008 by
  former Conservative MP and
  security spokesman Patrick

Mercer. Hamza’s last public

statement was released by Al

Qaeda’s media arm in 2018 in

which he called on people in the

Arabian peninsula to revolt.

He was believed to be aged

around 30 and his last known

whereabouts were thought to

be on the border of Pakistan

and Afghanistan. He had not

seen his father since he was 13.

In a September 2017 article

counterterror expert and former

FBI agent Ali Soufan said that

Hamza was ‘being prepared for

a leadership role in the organi-

zation his father founded’.

Hamza had reportedly found

favour because Al Qaeda’s cur-

rent leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri,

an egyptian born, bespectacled

strategist of 68, had failed to

inspire a new wave of fanatics.

In announcing the $1million

bounty, the US State Depart-

ment said that Hamza was

seeking revenge for the killing

of his father during the raid in

2011 by US Navy SeALs.

While Al Qaeda’s influence has

waned in recent years, the

group, which carried out the

9/11 attacks, is still regarded as

a major threat.

Bounty: Hamza bin Laden

From Daniel Bates
in New York

Dynasty of terror: Hamza bin Laden pictured with his father Osama

‘It is absolutely

horrifying’

months with no sign of a way to

solve the problem.

Patients are bearing the brunt,

with hospital waiting times soaring

by up to 50 per cent and consult-

ants having to cancel growing num-

bers of non-urgent operations.

Meanwhile, GP waiting times are

increasing as the pensions row exac-

erbates a shortage of doctors.

earlier this week, the Mail revealed

how the numbers of patients per GP

have risen by a third in the past two

years in some areas of england.

One 56-year-old GP, who has

halved his hours to avoid a tax bill

of £40,000, said he is now one of the

oldest doctors in Gloucestershire

because so many of his colleagues

are taking early retirement.

The BMA says the pensions crisis

is the ‘greatest immediate threat’ to

patient care. Doctors are being