NHS pension for GP locums: practical guide to PCSE logging, Form A and Form B

This is a practical guide for freelance GP locums doing eligible NHS work in England. It covers the usual Locum A and Locum B route, PCSE Online, the 10-week rule, contribution records and the monthly reconciliation habit that stops one missing approval becoming a last-minute problem.

It is not a substitute for checking your eligibility. The pension route can differ with the nature of the engagement, who commissioned it, where in the UK it took place and whether you worked as an individual or through a company. Treat your diary as evidence, not as proof that every NHS-looking session is pensionable.

The pension process is easier to control when it follows the work rather than becoming a separate year-end project. For eligible freelance GP locum practice work in England, the usual sequence is below. PCSE Online is the official system; airGP can hold your source and tracking record alongside the session and invoice.

PCSE states that a period of freelance GP locum work which ended more than 10 weeks ago cannot be pensioned and that forms received after 10 weeks may be rejected. That is not a target date. Locum A still needs to move through practice approval before you can finish the B and payment stage, so leaving the first action until week nine creates obvious risk.

Use the last date in the relevant period of work as the point from which to monitor age, but check the official wording for your exact submission. A sensible operational target is to reconcile each month early in the following month and to review outstanding approvals every week. That leaves time to correct a wrong practice, missing session or access issue.

Do not assume a delayed invoice or a practice’s slow response automatically extends the pension deadline. Escalate early through the official route if an approval is stuck, and retain the dates and references showing what you submitted and when.

Locum A connects the pension claim to the work and the commissioning practice. In the PCSE Online workflow, the locum submits the A information and the practice approves it. Locum B is the monthly summary and contribution stage completed by the locum. The approved A records feed the B workflow; they are related documents, not interchangeable names for the same action.

NHSBSA publishes forms for each scheme year, so use the form or online process for the correct period. GP SOLO is a different process used for certain work such as some out-of-hours or ICB work where the provider handles contributions. Do not force SOLO work into a Locum A/B record merely because you personally regard the shift as locum work.

A useful pension record must let you reconstruct what happened without reopening a chain of booking emails. Capture the source facts first; contribution calculations and PCSE status can be added as the workflow progresses. If one invoice covers several sessions, retain the individual session dates as well as the invoice total.

Keep payment references distinct. Your invoice number identifies the request to the practice; a PCSE submission reference and a GOV.UK Pay receipt relate to the pension process. Calling all three ‘reference’ creates confusion when you later investigate a mismatch.

Most failures are not sophisticated arithmetic errors. They are breaks in the audit trail: a practice entered under two names, an invoice total that includes something the pension figure does not, or a submitted A that nobody checks for approval. A monthly list should expose those gaps while there is still time to resolve them.

airGP’s useful role is before and after PCSE Online. It links pension logging records to the work that generated them: sessions, organisations, fees and invoices. You can mark pension status and retain PCSE logged dates, making it easier to see which sessions still need attention instead of trying to infer this from a folder of PDFs.

That tracking record can support reconciliation. If a month in PCSE does not match your expectation, return to the underlying sessions, check the organisation and invoice, and identify whether the missing step is eligibility review, A submission, practice approval, B submission or payment. The source data remains under your control; PCSE remains the official pension workflow.

airGP is an independent administrative record-keeping product. It is not PCSE, NHSBSA, NHS England, an accountant or a pension adviser. It does not decide whether work is pensionable and it does not create, complete, approve, submit or pay Locum A, Locum B or GP SOLO forms. Check current PCSE and NHSBSA guidance, and take advice for your circumstances where needed.

Suppose you worked six eligible sessions across Practice North and Practice South in May. At the end of each session you recorded the date, practice, agreed fee, invoice link and intended pension status. In early June, filter the May pensionable sessions and compare them with the two invoices. Resolve any missing fee or incorrectly assigned practice before opening PCSE Online.

Submit the relevant Locum A entries, then record the submission dates. Check for practice approval during the following week; contact the practice manager with the relevant dates if an entry remains outstanding. Once the A entries are approved, review the Locum B information and PCSE’s calculated contribution, submit, pay through the official GOV.UK Pay route where applicable, and retain the payment date and reference.

Finish by comparing airGP’s May session list with the PCSE record. Anything still unlogged or awaiting approval stays on the next weekly review. This is a small closed loop, not a vague reminder to ‘do pensions’. It identifies the exact session and next action.

Use PCSE’s current Locum A and B guidance for the England online workflow and payment instructions. Use the NHSBSA practitioner forms hub for the correct scheme-year Locum A, Locum B and GP SOLO documents and notes. Rules and rates can change, so those sources take precedence over this guide.