I have claimed an NHS pension on my OH's contributions as his widow.
I am sorry to say that they were very very slow to even reassure me that I was the named person for post mortem benefits. As you can imagine, this was very worrying at a very sad time.
Eventually they did confirm that a proportion of the pension was due to me. They paid the lump sum and started to pay in the pension monthly. Bizarrely - after a couple of months - they got in touch and said they had got the amount wrong, leading to a certain amount of panic! However, it was wrong in my favour, and I am being paid far more than I had expected - I hope that this goes for you too.
I too filled in forms that did not seem appropriate as there was the assumption that you were the retired NHS worker. But I did manage to sort it in the end.
Good luck with all this.