Planning for the future

Orthodontist Peter Boyd shares his financial planning journey, where an initial conversation about NHS pensions turned into a comprehensive financial plan for the future

I qualified as a dentist in 2002 and as an orthodontist in 2010. My work has predominantly been within the NHS, with a bit of private work mixed in.

Over the last couple of years, I have been seeing more private patients and, in 2020, along with three colleagues, set up a new private orthodontic practice in Otley called Yorkshire Orthodontics.

My long-term aim always was to reduce the amount of NHS work I was doing,
and increase the private element of the practice. I didn’t necessarily want to drop it altogether, as I was conscious there would be changes to NHS contracts in Leeds and was keen to retain ours.

FIRST CONTACT

I first contacted Wealthwide, previously known as Essential Money, back in November 2019 as I was uncertain about what to do with my NHS pension. As many dentists will know, the Government has announced several changes to public sector pensions [change from the 1995 to 2015 pension scheme and more recently the effect of the McCloud judgment], and tax laws have changed regarding annual and lifetime allowances. Along with many of my colleagues, I was finding it very hard to get my head around it and was being asked to make decisions about my pension that I didn’t really understand.

My wife is a GP and also works in the NHS, and we were keen to have a better understanding of how our NHS pensions fitted into a long-term plan for us both, so I knew I needed someone who had a detailed understanding of it. Fortunately, I was introduced to Martin Brown at Wealthwide by my accountants and it became clear very quickly that Martin had lots of experience in all aspects of financial planning, including the complexities of the NHS pension. Unfortunately, before we progressed, the pandemic hit, and I had to focus all my attention on the practice and the immediate future.

My family and I consider ourselves lucky as we were largely unaffected by the pandemic. Having an NHS contract obviously helped as we had some on-going income. Like many others working in the private sector, my private income fell very quickly, although this gave my colleagues and I the opportunity and time to set up an additional private practice. We very quickly found an old dental practice and got started with its renovation, which kept us busy.

RETIREMENT PLANS

As things started to get back to normal
and we regained some confidence about the future, I met up again with Martin in January 2021. My main focus was to make a decision about whether or not to opt out of the NHS pension, as there were going to be big tax charges every year for exceeding the pension allowance.

I wanted to know what the ramifications would be if I opted out, whether I was doing things right, and what the future might look like if I carried on as I had been. I didn’t really want to think about retirement. I just wanted to know there was a plan in place and what I needed to do.

My wife and I had a long discussion with Martin to help us make a decision about what route to take. Martin requested lots of information about our financial status which was a good exercise to go through and eventually helped us to understand our existing position.

From there, it was all put together in one big summary, which included our pensions and ISAs, and we had a plan. Without knowing it, this full picture was exactly what we needed. Prior to this, all our policies were separate and it felt like nothing tied together. We really felt that for the first time we had a complete understanding of the here and now and the best way forward for us, into the future.

Martin and Bhavna Parekh, with whom we work a lot on the administrative side, are clearly very experienced in dealing with the NHS pension scheme, and so this just took a weight off us.

Previously when I received letters from the NHS, I would think “What should I do?” Although I wasn’t overly worried about it on a daily basis, I knew it was something that I had to deal with eventually. Whereas now, when I get them, I know exactly what to do.

ADDED VALUE

What I wasn’t expecting was the value that financial planning would have in the here
and now, not just to my retirement plans and pension. We’re not massive spenders, but it’s reassuring to know that we do have money to spend on things we want to do now. There’s no point in waiting until we retire, especially now we have the reassurance of future savings being in place.

From next year, I will be significantly reducing my commitment to NHS treatment to become a primarily private orthodontist. That will be a big change, of course, and once that’s all happened, we’ll be in touch with Martin because that’s clearly going to have an impact on the pension, which will influence everything else. This is again, an example of where it’s really important that everything’s linked together.

Working with a financial planner has given me the reassurance that all avenues have been covered and that any problems that crop up will be dealt with. We now have an overriding plan in place that will be revisited with Wealthwide on a regular basis, and more often if change requires it.

I don’t think there are many specialist financial planning services out there that have the understanding that the team at Wealthwide have of the intricacies of the NHS pension and the dental profession as a whole. I’m so pleased to have found a financial planner who really knows what they’re talking about.

Whatever life throws my way, or if my goals and ambitions change, I know I have the Wealthwide team there supporting me and that my plan can be adjusted accordingly. With that reassurance, I can breathe easy.