Hi I have just received a letter saying i have to pay a £96 fine for not having a valid medical exemption certificate. I was diagnosed Type 1 in 1998 and have never paid for prescriptions since. Nobody has ever told me about this. Has anyone else had the same thing and if so what was the outcome?
I replied to this earlier, but the mods appear to have taken down my useful answer. Type 1s used to have blanket exemption just like the over 60s and under 16s until 2002, when some bright spark made exemption renewable every 5 years. They didn't tell existing certificate holders, only those diagnosed after 2002, so most assumed that the system wouldn't require them to prove they hadn't undergone a miracle cure, right? RIGHT?! They also didn't get reminder letters and it would be unreasonable to expect them to write to DH speculatively to ask if there had been any irrational rule changes.
Fast forward to 2014, and policing the system is centralised.Someone in NHS England commissions the BSA to enforce fines for invalid certificates and they go to town, fining anyone invalid £100, plus the prescription charge and £50 late payment. However, there is a flaw. The charge is raised in line with the Health Act 1999 (they should have used the NHS Act 2006, but no matter it's the same wording), but is meant to stop fraud e.g. health tourism. What the law says is you have to have 'knowingly' deceived the NHS, which of course you haven't. Nobody involved from their side checked the law. Ergo, this is the basis of a legal challenge from a well-know British advocacy organisation.
In the meantime, I got my £175 fine waived by explaining I'd never had to produce an exemption certificate. I had to ring up 3 times. Long term, we need to be agitating to remove the need for renewal, just like the over 60s, so if we are distracted in 5 years time by persobal tragedy or sickness we won't also receive a fine from the NHS for taking our medicines.
It's an absurdity. Don't accept it, don't 'eat humble pie'. Help us to expose this illegal behaviour.