Advice on NHS Fraud charge pls

[whiskycycle]

We're one of the few healthcare professionals where you can pop in without an appointment and speak with us in under 10 minutes. Imagine losing that.

That's utterly insane... Mrs whiskycycle helped design and roll out the "Think Pharmacy First" campaign and that was pretty bloody successful... not having that resource because "austerity" and "efficiency" is truly stupid. The savings made on prescription drugs in our area alone (NE England) were fairly quickly apparent, and as someone with a long term health condition who regularly visits the local pharmacy, I can tell you the staff and pharmacist were chuffed to bits with the change in public behaviour as a result (as were the GPs and the CCGs).

 

[Scort]

Maybe you did collect it then?...

 

[bigmike20vt]

Maybe you did collect it then?...

No I didn't I would bet everything I own on it. Besides that would not explain a random signatire. That neither I nore the pharmacy recognise.

 

[Hades]

bit of an update (appologies for the dupe post i am a bit frazzled with stuff and forgot i had posted)

I have had multiple emails, phone calls (always polite even when 1 person hung up on me) and was told to do a hand written letter which i did..... ultimately
I asked then later demanded my money back, told them they could then increase the fine if they chose and take me to court, they said me paying the fine was an automatic admission of guilt - I argued it wasnt but i was bullied into it due to being lied to about them having concrete proof against me and the threat of increasing the fine.

they have now got back to me and said IF the pharmacy will confirm I didnt pick up the medication, and IF no one else did it on my behalf via a headered written letter they will refund me. I will go see them tomorrow but am not expecting much given my last conversation with them. My only hope is i will ask them why they gave my medication out on such a poorly filled in form. (illegable sig only and the box for prepay checked everythnig else blank)

if that fails then i guess i am at a loss.

I asked how i could have protected myself from this happening to which i was told........ dont give people i do not trust permission to pick up my meds on my behalf AGH at this point i think they are trolling me!!!!!


thanks

If no joy at the pharmacy then maybe report it as fraud to the police.

 

[labcoattech]

The pre payment certificate systems needs an overfall, you might want to think about changing pharmacies.

 

[bigmike20vt]

well it took some doing, an email to head office as well as threatening to go to the police to get a fraud crime number however..........................

Hi Mike,

Thank you for your email, Firstly, I would like to apologise for the charges that you have occurred
I’ve spoken with the Branch manager who informed me that this was a branch error.
I have sent a letter addressed to yourself which should hopefully reach you before the end of this week, for you to send on to the NHS so we can get this fine waived for you.
Once again, I apologise and I hope this is now resolved to your satisfaction, however if you have any further concerns then do not hesitate to contact myself or one of my colleagues in the superintendent’s team on <redacted>
Kind Regards
<redacted>


So came good in the end however I have found the whole process and attitude from the NHS Fraud people to be poor. Bullying tactics to get their money, and then once they have the cash refusing to budge even when shown obvious evidence proving the prescription was not filled in properly. The entire system needs bringing into this century with a simple identity check and it being recorded when collecting a prescription. it is easy enough to do and when talking medication seems a no brainer to me. As soon as it was clear the prescription did not have any details to allow identification on, it should have been a no questions asked refund.

 

[labcoattech]

Glad you got it sorted, but as you mentioned it should have been a lot simpler to sort out.

 

[dowie]

So what is the possible reason for this? The pharmacist was a bit inept? Or have their been incidents of fraud on the part of pharmacies via this pre-payment system?

 

[dirtychinchilla]

I used my pre-paid thing for a long time after it ran out. No one ever wanted to see the certificate so I'd just sign it as free....nothing ever happened.

I think the hospital did try once to charge me for some antibiotics I received whilst at the hospital following surgery. I've no idea what the protocol is here, but I acted as confused as I felt and they stopped asking me.

 

[hominid]

I had a medical exemption certificate when I came out of hospital after a nasty accident about 25 years back, the person that set it up for me, I was incapacitated at the time, said all I have to do is tick a the box and job done.. 20 years later I get a call from the pharmacy to ask for my exemption number, I didn't know by this time, anyway after some looking around I found out they only last for 5 years. I had a permanent ailment so I thought it was permanent, so I was claiming free prescriptions for 15 years without the exemption certificate

No fines or anything, when I explained how it all happened they were fine with it. They do seem hotter on it now, I just had to renew the card, I had the pharmacy phoning to ask for my new number in the same week I received the new exemption.

 

[Energize]

@flibbage0 EPS was originally intended for repeat prescription though was it not? Seems daft not to use it for that unless there is another "standard" that it moved to.

Wait until Babylon becomes Country wide and there are only these online only pharmacies, the gov ruining what is a good asset.

EPS is a joke. The system is supposed to be all electronic, but I had to sign my name on paper prescriptions 4 times at the pharmacy for 3 items.

 

[ethan]

To be honest they, the NHS Business Authority owe a lot of people a lot of money since they applied fraud charges to people claiming exemption from prescriptions and dental charges who were inadvertently placed onto the the wrong benefits by the DWP. NHS Business have remained pretty quiet about that lol.

 

[Vanquish-Storm]

EPS is a joke. The system is supposed to be all electronic, but I had to sign my name on paper prescriptions 4 times at the pharmacy for 3 items.

It will be phases, you wouldn't roll everything in plan on day dot.

At least this phase means patients can't lose their prescriptions.

 

[Vanquish-Storm]

To be honest they, the NHS Business Authority owe a lot of people a lot of money since they applied fraud charges to people claiming exemption from prescriptions and dental charges who were inadvertently placed onto the the wrong benefits by the DWP. NHS Business have remained pretty quiet about that lol.

Surely DWP are the ones at fault. The NHS can only work with the information it is provided.

 

[Semple]

The entire system needs bringing into this century with a simple identity check and it being recorded when collecting a prescription.

I've gotta admit, i'm actually surprised they don't require the ID of the person who's medicine it is.

You need said persons ID to pick up a parcel from the post office, and that could be for a box of pencils. But to pick up some drugs which could be lethal in the wrong hands, you just need to cite a name and address.

 

[flibbage0]

EPS is a joke. The system is supposed to be all electronic, but I had to sign my name on paper prescriptions 4 times at the pharmacy for 3 items.

The problem is that we don't have a direct link to the GP surgery system.

We don't know what your exemption is, sometimes if we're not busy we'll enter it on to the system however we've got a million things to do so that's not always possible

Unfortunately this means we have to ask you to sign the back of your prescriptions

 

[flibbage0]

I've gotta admit, i'm actually surprised they don't require the ID of the person who's medicine it is.

You need said persons ID to pick up a parcel from the post office, and that could be for a box of pencils. But to pick up some drugs which could be lethal in the wrong hands, you just need to cite a name and address.

We ask for ID when it comes to controlled drugs and trust me sometimes you get some hostile responses, imagine if we did it for everyone

 

[Semple]

We ask for ID when it comes to controlled drugs and trust me sometimes you get some hostile responses, imagine if we did it for everyone

Ahh i see, Thankfully *touch wood* i've never needed to pick up anything more than antibiotics from the pharmacy, so had assumed it would all be the same.

To be fair, people don't moan that they have to take ID to the post office to pick up a parcel, so can't see why people would feel it's justified to not require ID to pick up a prescription. It would certainly clamp down on things like the OP ran into.

 

[mrochester]

A real time exemption checking system is currently being rolled out. This will allow pharmacies to check whether a patient is exempt automatically as the medication is being dispensed. I believe it only applies to EPS. If a patient is confirmed as exempt there will be no need for a printed EPS token to be signed.

 

[labcoattech]

This could easily be done via an app on your phone, when buying a 24 hour bus ticket via an app on my phone it displays the current time, when the ticket expires, word of the day which the bus driver knows, also an animated background so you can't share the ticket via a screenshot.