The NHS has found “significant issues” with the accuracy of GP pension records dating as far back as 2004, according to the British Medical Association General Practitioners Committee (GPC) chair Richard Vautrey.

In a letter to fellow GPC member, Dr Krishan Aggarwal, published on the BMA’s website, Vautrey said NHS England told the BMA that having commissioned a report on the accuracy of GP pension records, it has found “significant issues with the sample of records they assessed dating back to 2004”.

“We have asked for full details of this review but NHS England has not let us have sight of the report so far. We do not, therefore, know what specifically the issue relates to, what might have caused it or how many GPs might be affected. We are now pushing to have an urgent meeting with NHS England to discuss this, given its clear importance,” Vautrey wrote.

He said the BMA is “extremely concerned” about what it might mean for GPs across the country. Vautrey added that NHS England has commissioned a further piece of work on how to resolve the issues, and it is hoped that plans will be in place over the next few weeks.

In March this year the BMA revealed it had requested information from NHS England to address issues impacting GPs’ pension contributions. The problems result from ongoing and serious failures of Primary Care Support England (PCSE)’s service delivery of NHSE functions, it said.

“In 2015 NHSE sub-contracted PCSE functions (delivered by Capita) to process pension contributions from GPs, particularly sessional or locum GPs, for the NHS Pension Scheme. Due to a series of flaws in PCSE’s administration of superannuation contributions in England, BMA has submitted two requests under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000,” the BMA said.

The BMA has also requested information on the NHS England-operated compensation scheme for GPs caused by administrative delays.

Aggarwal said: “Our FOI requests are a result of our ongoing concerns with PCSE’s ability to process the pension contributions of GPs. While we understand that our concerns are being taken seriously, ultimately it is the responsibility of NHS England to ensure that individuals’ pension contributions are processed correctly, that their records are up to date and that they are submitted to NHS Pensions on time.

"NHS England must resolve these issues so that no GP is financially penalised due to the processing of pension contributions by PCSE.”

GPC policy lead Ian Hume has also stated that GPC will report back to members with the outcomes of the FOIs and is seeking written assurances from NHS England that no GP will be adversely impacted by "Capita failings".

An NHS England spokesperson said: “NHS England is currently looking into concerns which have been raised surrounding GP pension records dating back to 2004, including a question of whether GPs have been fulfilling their legal requirement to submit annual self-certified forms. This work is ongoing in conjunction with other relevant agencies.”

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