• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Type 1: Prescription fine

Spiker said:
Yeah but... Pharmacies prescription desks would have been the logical place to put the leaflets. I've never seen one, if they were ever sent to pharmacies.
Click to expand...
nor me officious they dont care about people in general.very disappointing.
 
too late for alot of people.
 

I hope you took her name and will make a complaint about her.

You say OH has valid exemption certificate, and you told the person you spoke to, but she says you will still get a letter of non compliance? Non compliance to what, exactly?
 
 
I cant believe they are not checking.these oharmacys should advice when picking up these medications .surprise d doctors and pharmacys r not more helpful.it cant cant carry on
 
I cant believe i have wrote to head office oftwo chemists to stop it happening to other people.this shouldnt be going on when pharmacys know there will be penaltys .i have argued about this being the pharmists responseabilty .the people who send the penaltys argue its not but yet on the internet it states it is.all this confusion.it should all be stopped.people who are diabetics .thyroid probs r entitled to it y bother with a card.the medication is offious .sorry cant spell
 
I argue and argue it annoys me i told one go back to training. I asked my friend whos a diabetic about if she had a mec card she had never had one .i said get one now.so has done.so helped one person at least from paying a penalty.
 
I feel like tearing my hair out over this.it should be stopped now
 
I have just spoken to NHS BSA and have been told my penalties have been waived but that I still have to pay the prescription charges. I'm not paying. In 1999, I was given lifetime exemption when diagnosed Type 1. Diabetes UK is meeting the Department of Health to discuss this issue next week. As if any of us with Type 1 would do anything to risk our insulin supply! Madness. I have NEVER been asked for a certificate in 16 years. The criteria for free insulin for diabetics goes back to 1968 - we have never been told that this has changed.
 
As has been said multiple times on the topic, you generally sign the back of a script having ticked a box that says you hold a medical exemption certificate, not that you are medically exempt. It's not the pharmacist's fault that you don't understand what you have ticked and signed for. They are instructed not to withhold medication if no certificate is shown, simply to state that the certificate hasn't been seen.

Whilst it isn't nice, and seems very unfair, it is also your personal responsibility to understand what you are signing for.
 

That's all very well Tim but remember there is usually a queue of people waiting to be served in pharmacies and the serving assistants are usually in a hurry to serve and get rid of people so that the next person can be dealt with. Very often, people dont really get the chance to read what they are signing as there is nothing highlighted in bold to draw anyone's attention. Instead, the serving assistant if there is queue of people, will just askif someone is medically exempt want people to sign the back of the form quickly etc.

Now that I have been able to read the above website and clicked on the links, many pharmacies who dispense prescriptions using EPS will have slipped up if they have not asked to SEE the proof of exemption first before dispensing and have just presumed instead.

It also looks like those who are medically exempt with the exemption card number will probably need to visit their GP so that the card number can be entered on the prescription by EPS.
 
@Brian_H , I am not implying fraud, I am suggesting that people shouldn't complain if they don't think about what they are signing. It is stated very clearly that you are signing that you have a medical exemption certificate, not that you have a medical exemption. If you don't understand what that means, at the very least I would expect someone to ask.

I am not suggesting, as you say, that people are intending to defraud the NHS. I am contending that, much like software license agreements, if you tick a box and sign for something (or click agree), without properly reading and understanding what you are doing, you can't really complain when it has an unintended consequence.

Look at it from the other perspective. There are an awful lot of people who have MECs and have had them for years. These people found out somehow that this was necessary.

While there is a lot of very bad information being provided by GPs and exacerbated by Pharmacists, and I'm not suggesting that these penalty charges are legitimate, it still stands that they are being levied by a government organisation because people haven't taken responsibility for what they are doing.

I have no issue with them being fought in the same manner as parking charges on private land, or that the method of application is wrong, but to stand there and cry "Well it's not my fault, I didn't know what I was doing" is a way of saying, "I'm not responsible". Well sorry, but everyone who ticks that box and signs the form is, just like parking on private property where there is a sign warning about penalty charges!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I just think that it is a shame that there hasn't been processes in place before issuing penalty charges.

I think its pretty poor of NHS England to allow this penalty charge scheme to be brought in without making any newspaper adverts or media or advertising or even asking GP's to contact their patients that these charges could apply to.

No matter whoss fault it is with the forms or opinions on this, NHS England should have informed the population in a proactive manner. The world seems to penalise the patients with critical illnesses enough with dvla, jobs, travel insurance without doing this.

Surely the could find the persons that have no critical illness and claim and penalty charge them. They have systems in place that could easily have been set out to make the population aware.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
IMO, it would have been a sensible idea to have an "advert" about this on the TV screens in surgeries - they're quick to push just about everything else, why not tell people about needing a certificate?
 
they advice people not to hold their medication s.o they can give out penaltrys.if they adviced people wouldnt be getting the penalty.
course the pharmacy would be adviced not to keep medication.they would not be able to give a penaltry to people.then.its a dirty way of doing things.advice and warn to pay or leave would be right way ,so people would not get a penalty
 
Brian, just because you don't agree with a post doesn't mean you decide if it should stay on a thread or not. All Tim was saying, and quite politely, was that people are signing to say they hold a current medical exemption certificate. He went on to say he disagrees with the fine. I don't think he deserves such a strong attack from yourself just because it's something you don't agree with.
 
i agree with you there should of been ads every where ,doctors surgeries.pharmacy be fore they gave u medication a big notice on counter bill boards,radio.television .even inland revenuehave ads all over when the date comes for tax return warning u of a penaltry.if its late payment.fairand square outin the open.up frount.
 
Inland Revenue have dates everywhere because it's the same date for everyone. There are no huge posters everywhere reminding you to renew your passport are there ? I agree public awareness could have been better but the vast majority managed to get one. Again, I don't agree with penalty notices and I hope they all get overturned. Good luck all.
 
[QUOTE="donnellysdogs, post: 782979, member: 17713"Surely the could find the persons that have no critical illness and claim and penalty charge them. They have systems in place that could easily have been set out to make the population aware.[/QUOTE]
I'm beginning to wonder if they did this and it did not find enough fraudulent claims (people can be more honest than we give them credit for), therefore began to attack those with genuine medical conditions, but not the correct certificate.

I'm totally with you on this, surely it would have been more cost effective to do a campaign to ensure that people applied for an up to date certificate, than this witch hunt - which I feel will only become very costly for them if and when a court deems their actions improper.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…