From the Guardian. Some people omitted to notify a change of address, but it seems the NHS has made mistakes. I know people here have been affected.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/10/nhs-falsely-accuses-thousands-patients-prescription-fraud

A Penalty is not a Fine.

No different to requiring a motorist to notify DVLA of change of address for Licence & V5c.

The NHS checks appear to work as many Penalties were withdrawn before further action was taken.

Many more than 1.5M are prob defrauding NHS of prescription charges/right to free treatment.

False News?

A fundamental problem which inflates these figures is that an exemption certificate expires with no reminder being issued, and where there is often no requirement to show the certificate at the point of use, the patient is unaware of the expiry and simply continues to tick the box claiming an exemption when it is no longer valid. I have probably only been asked to show my own exemption certificate probably three or four times in the last seven years or so and did not even realise that it had an expiry date until I was prompted to check after reading a similar story elsewhere. Mine was indeed about to expire so I had to get the doctor to sign for a renewal, fortunately I received it before needing to reorder my meds. I know though of many who have been similarly caught out and issued with a penalty for claiming exemption when it had in fact expired

Sidewinder, I accept the right to access free NHS Sevices are not checked by most Community Pharmacists or Hospitals, at time of need. Perhaps the Budget om Tues will introduce new rules.

It is not evident to most they should inform the Issuing Authority of any change in mailing address asap to avoid unwanted letters. eg the motorist.

I know it's not mentioned in the article; but I wonder how much of this "fraud" is because some people are now being switched to universal credit? You can get free prescriptions under UC; but there's no box to tick to say if you're on it.

Does anyone know if they are/have been successful in forcing these 'penalty fees' on people and making them pay?

How lawful are they considering, they use both penalty& fine in the same paragraph?

Interesting question, BB.

I only have 3rd party professional rather than personal experience of dealing with my wonderful colleagues at nhsbsa and can confirm that they’re like a dog with a bone when it comes to collecting money.

can confirm that they’re like a dog with a bone when it comes to collecting money.

Excellent, lets run them ragged then.