Acumen's specialist Medical & Dental practice expands to Glasgow

George Gray, who leads Acumen’s Medical and Dental business, joined the firm in 2019 and is now engaged in helping to develop the firm’s operations at their new Glasgow offices.

As Gray explains, Acumen has had an office in the Southside of Glasgow since 2017, when the firm acquired Forty-Two Financial Planning. However, it recently moved to its West End location, having outgrown its Southside premises. 

“This has opened up an opportunity for us to base our specialist Medical and Dental financial planners in Glasgow. We’re planning to grow this side of Acumen’s business significantly over the next few years, in both Glasgow and Edinburgh,” he comments. 

As Gray explains, advising clients who fall under the umbrella of the NHS pension schemes requires financial planners to have a comprehensive, specialist knowledge of those schemes. “You need to be able to show each client how benefits accrued under those schemes are likely to map out against each individual’s lifetime goals,” he notes. 

Part of the challenge is the complexities around the different pension schemes. Helping clients understand how these apply or what they mean for their individual circumstances is where Acumen specialise.

In previous years many members have been impacted by annual allowance or lifetime allowance charges, resulting in many members opting out or being faced with significant tax charges. 

However, the Spring Budget, along with the outcomes of the recent consultations such as the McCloud remedy have brought about further changes which are positive but has highlighted the need for further understanding and advice.

As this suggests, there is a lot of specialist knowledge that a financial planner needs to have in order to be able to advise and guide clients with careers in the NHS and related areas. 

“The client base that Medical & Dental built up over two decades includes professionals from all walks of the NHS and associated services. While the firm’s client base has tended to be centred around the Aberdeen region, we have long had clients across Scotland. 

“The majority of our clients are, consultants, dentists and GPs. 

“As the Greater Glasgow area has a much larger preponderance of people working in and for the NHS. The opening of the Glasgow office will enable us to provide our services to a much wider audience,” he comments.

The firm also plans to raise awareness of its services. It will be attending the Dental Show in Glasgow, for example, in 2024.  The early signs are that there is demand for this type of advice in Glasgow. We are already generating an encouraging amount of interest,” he comments. 
Gray and his colleagues are focused on providing a comprehensive range of services.

“We look to help each of our clients understand their objectives and priorities in relation to all aspects of financial planning. This includes personal risk management such as life, health and income protection. It also covers longer-term goals such as wealth creation and retirement planning,” he comments. 

“Our understanding of how this interacts with the existing NHS pension schemes and with the career structures in the various arms of the NHS is what sets us apart as specialist financial planners,” Gray says. 

He points out that one of the things that makes financial planning particularly complex in this arena is the interaction between each of the different schemes and how these would apply to an individual’s circumstances. “There can be allowance issues for higher paid professionals. People are concerned about tax charges and want to be clear about how this impacts their broader financial future,” he notes.

Gray and his five specialist colleagues in Acumen’s Medical & Dental arm have this year been involved in running education sessions for NHS Grampian on the NHS pension, particularly for the Scottish Ambulance Service.

“These are purely educational and is our way of giving back and supporting those who look after us, by providing NHS staff and new graduates financial education seminars on what NHS pensions, and other key financial planning topics are all about. This is all about providing financial advice and guidance,” he comments. 

“You have to remember that some of the students coming out of medical school are going to go on to run practices that are businesses in their own right. So the earlier they can acquire a financial education that will help them, the better,” he notes.
www.medicaldental.co.uk

The information in this article is correct at the time of publishing and should not be regarded as advice.

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