NHS staff overpaying tax, investigation finds

An investigation by the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme has found that thousands of NHS workers could have overpaid thousands in income tax and National Insurance.

The error, which dates back to 1999, applies to certain NHS employees who did Widening Access Training (WAT). While some workers have received rebates of up to £24,000, others complain they have struggled to get any response from tax authority HMRC or their NHS trust.

HMRC has claimed the error was a result of individual NHS trusts' payroll services deducting too much tax from employees' pay. In particular those that took part in the WAT training scheme, which allowed NHS employees to undertake training at colleges and universities to widen their professional knowledge.

NHS staff who met certain criteria, including being paid less than £15,480 while they were training, should not have paid income tax or National Insurance.

It has been reported that around 8,000 people had been paid refunds in the past four financial years

HMRC has said it has set up a dedicated team to process the large number of refunds due.

An HMRC spokesman said: "We are working closely with NHS trusts to ensure that all those who overpaid tax and National Insurance receive refunds as soon as possible."