NHS Presciption and Dental payments

luckynumber13

My son is 20 and at uni, he is now on a regular prescription and I cannot see online whether he would qualify for an HC2 exemption card (very non-specific info!). It wouldn't be worth him pre-paying but as his only income is his student loan would that mean he can apply or is it just a case of applying and seeing what happens?

silvercar

You could apply and see.
They consider student loan as income and ask for bank statements, so any parental regular payments would count too.
Better that he applies during term time, when he is a student living independently rather than during the holidays when he is living at home.

MalMonroe

He could fill in an HC1 form and see if he's successful, of course because most students are on a low income. He may be able to get partial help with health costs, if not full costs. If he's on a regular prescription, I'm not saying that this is the case but would it be appropriate for him to contact the University's disabled student office? He may qualify for a non-repayable allowance. Just a thought.

It doesn't matter when he applies, term time or not because the details of his income won't change and everything has to be declared anyway.

unforeseen

luckynumber13 said:

My son is 20 and at uni, he is now on a regular prescription and I cannot see online whether he would qualify for an HC2 exemption card (very non-specific info!). It wouldn't be worth him pre-paying but as his only income is his student loan would that mean he can apply or is it just a case of applying and seeing what happens?

If it's one prescription per month then pre-payment still gives a saving. Don't forget that 'monthly' prescriptions are normally 28 days, so 13 prescriptions per month. 

silvercar

MalMonroe said:

It doesn't matter when he applies, term time or not because the details of his income won't change and everything has to be declared anyway.

I was specifically told this isn't the case. If you apply in term time, you have your rent and utilities to pay for. Apply when you are living at home in the holidays, and they assume that there is no rent to pay and make no allowance for term time commitments.

luckynumber13

Thank you for your replies. He is already there as he got this years flat from 1st July. He has registered his illness when completing this years joining info so they should be aware but will get him to complete the form and see what happens. He gets no income from us (due to COVID and us running our own business that has been closed since lockdown). Only gets extra from surveys or selling something he owns online if he gets desperate!