@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!